If you’re driving southbound on Interstate 95 between exits 72 and 75, and your eyes happen to drift off to the right, you might assume the nearly 200,000 square feet of scorched earth is the result of the Russians field-testing a small tactical nuclear weapon. Your second guess might be that a giant meteor crashed. Wrong on both counts.

You’re actually looking at progress.

I was born in New London and spent the first six years of my life as a hellion — torturing my poor mom by running amok in low-income (affordable) housing off Colman Street.

Then — cue the music from the intro to the hit TV show, "The Jeffersons" — we started movin’ on up. In the early 1970s my mom remarried and we moved to the ‘burbs, a home in the shadow of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station.

Fast forward to July 2004. I married and we moved to a quaint, quiet little rural neighborhood in East Lyme.

However, our silence and solitude have come to a thunderous end. All in the name of progress.

Months ago, less than a mile from our home, contractors began chewing up and spitting out every living thing that stood in the path of that progress. Our little slice of East Lyme went from a muted little suburb into what seemed a full-blown war zone.

I can still set my watch to the day’s first muffler-less dump truck, receiving its ear-savaging payload from the stable of relentless bulldozers – their engines roaring non-stop until the sun slips beneath the horizon. Only recently did the blasting for ledge subside. The explosions were so ferocious they knocked pictures from my walls and sent Ozzy, my normally mild-mannered English golden retriever, into a full-fledge panic.

After we complained about this, the company responsible placed a seismograph in our front yard and assured us the blasts were well within limits. I’m not sure who determines the limit, but I’m pretty sure he or she is not a dog owner.

Since the bombing – er, blasting – started, my wife Christine and I have noticed a few cracks in the foundation as well as a deteriorating, cracking driveway. A small price for progress, I guess.

Prior to the blasting, and the drilling, and the digging, my quiet little corner used to get daily visits from local deer, possum, rabbits, wild turkeys, with rare appearances from wandering coyotes. Now, almost nightly, coyotes can be seen in the tree-line behind our property. The destruction of their environment now means they must visit ours. Their habitat was eliminated without a second thought.

Another price of progress.

The fruition of this progress – a Costco – should be up and selling in 2020. Here are a few things we can count on. Traffic will be a disaster; navigating one of the most treacherous stretches of highway in the country will only get worse. Promises of a new, improved highway with better overpasses and off ramps will be great two decades from now, when they’re finished, but what about the nightmare we will have to endure while all those improvements are being implemented?

Construction is painstakingly slow and highway construction is the worst kind of slow. If the state promises the project will take five years, you can bet your last orange cone it’ll be 15. I-95 already looks like a parking lot every Sunday in summer, so imagine the fun when construction limits access to one lane.

It's the price of progress, I guess.

The Costco and its surrounding retail ventures are supposed to add to my adopted town’s grand list. However, with new apartments and retail space comes increased population, increased demands for services, infrastructure expenses and the potential of higher enrollment in East Lyme schools. What's the chance my taxes actually go down?

OK, I'm having a NIMBY moment (not in my back yard). But, honestly, how many malls and big-box stores do we really need? I'm a capitalist and a conservative, but what price are we willing to pay for this “progress”? Every last piece of open space does not have to turn into asphalt! My advice to surrounding communities: Be careful what you wish for.

According to a 2018 travel website, East Lyme was the 29th most beautiful town in America. Maybe a new Costco, complete with its own gas station, will prove to be so aesthetically appealing Expedia will put this town near the top of the next rankings. Sprinkle in a Dollar General and/or Jiffy Lube and we could be #1!

More likely, this “progress” will mean regress when it comes to what made our town special.

Lee Elci is the morning host for 94.9 News Now radio, a station that provides "Stimulating Talk" with a conservative bent.