Posted on February 9, 2021
As a powerful nor’easter slammed New Jersey with thick blankets of snow and ice earlier this week, the storm chewed through the state’s beaches and dunes.
Hour after hour of coastal flooding caused widespread beach erosion documented in photos and videos posted on social media.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection spent recent days surveying the scope of beach erosion at 81 sites along the state’s coast, spokesman Larry Hajna told NJ Advance Media. The results of that survey were posted online Thursday.
Of the beaches surveyed, nine experienced severe erosion, 18 saw moderate damage and 54 had minor effects from the storm. The majority of damage was seen along the Atlantic Coast, though both the Raritan and Delaware bayshores saw occurrences of significant beach erosion, too.
“Much of the sand has likely washed into sandbars just off the beaches and will likely migrate back onto beaches,” Hajna said. “The DEP is committed to working with coastal communities to ensure timely repair of beaches.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District, which oversees beach restorations and other coastal projects on the Shore from Manasquan Inlet and south, said it will coordinate with DEP to deal with any damage to its projects. The Army Corps’s New York office (which is responsible for areas north of Manasquan inlet,) deferred response to DEP.
Beach erosion is one of the most visible impacts of climate change on New Jersey, serving as an overnight reminder of the power of sea level rise and increasingly intense storms. Hajna said the state has and will continue to commit “considerable resources” overtime to restore and protect the dunes on Shore beaches, which in turn protect economic and ecological resources of New Jersey’s coastal areas.
One city that suffered major erosion was North Wildwood. The damage was captured in social media posts on Tuesday.
North Wildwood has long been prone to beach erosion. The busy 2020 hurricane season caused upwards of $5 million worth of damage to the city’s beaches, Mayor Patrick Rosenello previously estimated. On Friday, Rosenello told NJ Advance Media this latest storm could bring a similar financial hit. He worries the town is dangerously exposed to another strong storm.
“This storm did significant damage to very mature dune systems down in the middle of town,” Rosenello said. “We are at significant risk right now that, during the next nor’easter, that dune system is probably going to collapse.”
Video from Monday morning posted to Facebook shows waves pounding ashore at 7th Avenue in North Wildwood and reaching all the way to a seawall.
The city’s response to ongoing beach erosion has been to act on an emergency basis, sometimes without securing state authorization, trucking in sand from the broader beaches of neighboring Wildwood to build new bulkheads.
The DEP hit North Wildwood with a pair of violations for this illegal work last June, citing long-lasting ecological harm. It threatened to force the town to remove everything deemed “illegal construction” if the situation cannot be remedied.
Rosenello said the measures are necessary because the DEP and the Army Corps have not started a resilience project that was supposed to begin in 2017, leaving North Wildwood as the last town on the Shore to not have such improvements. He said if the town doesn’t get emergency help from the two agencies, it will be forced to extend the steel bulkhead that has drawn DEP’s ire.
“Anyone with a shred of common sense can understand that without that steel bulkhead, we would’ve lost streets and buildings,” Rosenello said.
The mayor added that he feels caught between two arms of DEP: The coastal engineering division, which he says is not moving fast enough to construct permanent solutions, and the enforcement division, which he called “separated from reality.”
“Mother Nature doesn’t work on DEP’s timeline,” Rosenello said. “And Mother Nature doesn’t adhere to DEP’s rules and regulations.”
Hajna said DEP and North Wildwood are still working to resolve the issues.
The DEP and the Army Corps are currently working with North Wildwood, Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and Lower Township on a five-mile-long beach and dune construction project. Steve Rochette, a spokesman for the Army Corps’ Philadelphia office, said the project is still in the design phase. He added that work can’t begin until the state secures real estate easements in the area.
Other moderate beach erosion was reported in Avalon and Stone Harbor, just across Hereford Inlet from North Wildwood. Ann Delaney, a Stone Harbor resident who works as a real estate agent in the area, said the damage was sporadic and expected.
“The sections affected are often damaged by major winter storms,” Delaney told NJ Advance Media in an email. “Thankfully, the Borough does a great job with leveling the paths and Mother Nature returns most of the sand by spring!”
Elsewhere in Cape May County, the stormwaters unearthed the “ghost tracks” of a long abandoned railroad on the beach in Cape May. The tracks served a sand mining operation in the early 20th century, but had long been reclaimed by nature. They first reappeared in 2014, and have sporadically been seen after coastal storms in the years since.
Up the Shore in Ocean County, Island Beach State Park was briefly closed on Wednesday due to beach erosion, according to a Patch report. The DEP determined the park had suffered moderate erosion.
Nearby, Harvey Cedars was harder hit, earning a “major” classification from DEP for the damage to its beaches. Mayor Jonathan Oldham said his borough lost dune fencing and parts of its beach to the ocean, and it will have to repair its beach access points. Oldham described Harvey Cedars as a hotspot for beach erosion because of its location on the bend of Long Beach Island. He’s hopeful the lost sand will return to shore naturally in the Spring.
“Anytime we lose a piece of sand off the beach, it hurts,” Oldham said.
The mayor added that Harvey Cedars saw significant back bay flooding during the storm, leaving some residents with debris in their yards and damaged basements. Oldham said the borough has been experiencing about two or three occasions of serious back bay flooding annually in recent years.
Meanwhile, Bay Head also suffered major erosion, as the stormy waters turned the borough’s dunes into cliffs.
William Curtis, mayor of Bay Head, described the damage as a public safety emergency, which could become an economic emergency if repairs are not done before the warmer months. Curtis said the town will soon send a letter to the DEP, the Army Corps and U.S. Rep Chris Smith, R-4th Dist., seeking urgent help.
“We’re in an emergency situation right now,” Curtis said. “We’re going to have to get something.”
The storm took massive chunks out of dunes installed by the Army Corps in the recent years, leaving sheer walls of sand up to 25 feet high in some places, Curtis said. He worries what could happen if a portion of the damaged dune collapses while people are walking beneath it.
“There’s nothing holding it together,” Curtis said. “The grass hasn’t taken hold, it’s just sand.”
The mayor added that of Bay Head’s 11 beach access points, 10 have been rendered unusable by the storm.
“If it stays like this, it’ll adversely affect Bay Head and its rentals and its businesses,” Curtis said.
Bay Head is one of the multiple Shore towns which resisted the state’s post-Sandy vision to fortify dunes and widen beaches along the coast. In a public battle with former Gov. Chris Christie, Bay Head residents argued they were better served by a massive rock sea wall. That fight went to court, where a judge ruled in favor of the state and allowed for the new dunes to be constructed.
Curtis still believes his residents were right, and he thinks the engineering work has left the borough’s beaches worse off.
“I think, personally, had they left Bay Head alone and just left us with our rock wall revetment, we’d be in the same position we were five years ago.”
