There have been many major storms in the last 30 years, but coastal manager Tony Pratt says last week’s unrelenting nor’easter makes his list of the top three worst storms.
Pratt, program administrator of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s (DNREC’s) Shoreline Management Section, said the loss of sand, from the tip of Cape Henlopen to Fenwick Island, is so substantial that prompt restoration is required.
It may be a record season for nor’easters. “I’m concerned about the number of storms we’ve had already, and we are not out of the woods until May or June,” he said. “The beaches need some attention right away. We need help quickly as we can get it.”
That help could come from the federal government. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently surveying to determine how much sand was lost. “We want to measure, not speculate,” Pratt said. Just how much sand was lost and how much it will cost to replace it will be determined through the Corps’ survey. It’s a safe estimate the cost will be in the millions of dollars.
Pratt said beaches were pounded for three days by 23- to 25-foot-high waves, with one wave hitting 27 feet, as measured by an offshore National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoy. “It was a pretty phenomenal ocean,” he said.
“I’ve never seen the ocean with so much furry,” said Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach. “The whole level of the ocean was raised.”
Pratt said all losses along the shoreline would be assessed because fencing, dune crossovers and dune grass also took a major hit from the three-day storm.
The hardest-hit areas included the beach at the north end of the Rehoboth Boardwalk, areas at both ends of the Bethany Beach boardwalk and the southern end of South Bethany, he said. At two Bethany Beach locations, the dune was breached and completely lost. At the time of the storm, Bethany Beach was in the final stages of a beach replenishment project begun in 2008.
He said the dune at Dewey Beach held up well because it was replenished earlier this year. DNREC crews have been working to clean up after the storm.
The beaches had not yet recovered from storms that hit the Cape Region first in early September and then in mid-October. Following those storms, Mike Powell, an environmental scientist with DNREC’s Shoreline Management Section, said the natural rebuilding of the beaches would depend on future storms.
During the previous two storms, massive amounts of sand washed off the beaches and formed a large sandbar 50 to 100 yards offshore. Waves can be now be seen breaking offshore on the sandbar.
Schwartzkopf is concerned coastal towns can’t weather another powerful nor’easter. He said work must start now, moving sand back to the dunes, which will improve the profile of the beach and allow more sand to be deposited on the beach by waves. “I’m going to suggest that we contract out to companies with heavy equipment to get the process moving,” he said. “This way we can also put some people back to work, and it’s important to move the sand back to the dune line as soon as possible.”
Pratt said the dunes, added and rebuilt along the coast since 2002, did their job. “I tell people the dunes are the sacrificial element,” Pratt said. “They are designed to take the hit, and not the area behind them.”
He said without the dunes, the Rehoboth Boardwalk, including new sections, would have been significantly damaged, buildings would have been damaged and flooding would have been extensive in downtown Rehoboth and Dewey.
Schwartzkopf said you can’t put a dollar figure on the importance of maintaining the dunes. “The replenishment did what it was supposed to do,” he said.
He said the dunes are the final line of protection for the vital tourism industry.
“Tourism is the driving force for Delaware’s economy, and the beaches are what people come for. We have to protect the beaches.”
Rebuilding the beaches is all about money. Funds, into the tens of millions of dollars, have poured in over the past seven years from state and federal sources to replenish the beaches and rebuild the dunes.
He said one of the reasons for dune damage and excessive sand loss north of the Rehoboth Boardwalk was directly tied to the lack of funding to complete the recent maintenance phase of the 2004 replenishment project.
“Since the storm of 1962, we learned a lesson – we can never let our guard down. All the work we do on the beach and dunes is for the next storm. We are already thinking about the next one,” Pratt said.
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