Posted on September 30, 2024
Pictures and videos of ocean front cottages in the Outer Banks town of Rodanthe collapsing into the ocean as well as the pictures of severe beach erosion in Carolina Beach resulting from Potential Tropical Cyclone number 8 (PTC#8) are clear wake up calls for Carteret County and the region. We cannot take our good fortune for granted, thinking that these events will never happen here. They can, and based on the county’s history with storms, we should expect similar natural events in the near future.
And now, Hurricane Helene has struck Florida’s Gulf Coast with major tidal surge and heavy rains with an anticipation of significant damage to beachfront communities as well as inland areas. The final analysis of the destruction will not be determined for easily a week or more, but when that tally is complete there will be, or at least should be, a recognition that the storm’s destruction of inland properties was mitigated by the beach fronts which took the first assault from the ocean.
Considering all of the natural events that have taken place in the past few weeks, the recent decision by the county’s beach commission to begin planning for a new beach nourishment program is timely. But even before these recent hurricanes and the unnamed tropical cyclone, PTC#8, hit the news, the county’s beaches along Bogue Banks were already being scrutinized by the Newport-based surveying company Geodynamics. This is a locally grown company by the way, that has received international recognition for its state-of-the-art coastal surveying procedures.
It is ironic that Gregory Rudolph, the county’s first shore protection office manager, is now working with Geodynamics, following almost 20 years as the county’s lead beach and inland waterway expert. During that time, Rudolph was highly regarded along the entire east coast for his initiatives in creating and managing the county’s beach nourishment program, de novo, without benefit of any existing template for the position or operational structure.
Because of the extensive baseline work created by Rudolph since the commission first began as the beach task force in 1999, the county has a clear understanding of the benefits resulting from nourishment programs as well as documentation following cases of severe beach erosion.
That baseline information, along with constant studies of the county’s beaches, resulted in a recommendation to the commission last week that plans should begin now for a beach nourishment project. Nicole VanderBeke of Moffatt and Nichol, an internationally recognized marine engineering firm, remarking on surveys recently concluded on 122 transects, straight line measurements of the beach that showed significant loss of sand, created what she described as a “sand deficit.”
In her presentation to the commission according to News-Times reporter, Brad Rich, VanderBeke “told the commission there was significant sand loss along almost all of the Bogue Banks” that has occurred over the past year. This was brought about, she noted, as a result of a more active than usual winter storm season during which some storms created wave heights cresting 10 feet or more.
The commissioners, remembering the damage caused by Hurricane Florence in 2018, during which the 36-hour Category 1 storm created two record high tides scraping thousands of yards of sand from the Bogue Banks beaches, quickly agreed to begin planning for another nourishment project.
Before any sand can be deposited on the county’s beaches, there are a multitude of permits to be acquired. This is a major undertaking when considering the number of federal and state agencies, such as the Army Corps of Engineers, EPA, NOAA, and a plethora of agencies within the Department of the Interior as well as state agencies that have to sign off on the plan. And then there are the non-governmental organizations, the NGO’s that constantly challenge any effort to nourish beaches out of a variety of hyper concerns such as turtle, fish and even bird migrations.
Once the permits are granted and funding is found, then the next phase of beach nourishment is finding the dredges, which are few in number and in high demand for both coastal and river management. All of these permitting efforts and the incumbent bidding requirements for dredging services are anticipated to take at least two years, so time is of the essence in initiating a new nourishment project.
Planning and managing a beach nourishment program is akin to writing the score for a symphony orchestra, assuring each instrument or in this case, each agency, is in synch with the conductor. But unlike a musical production there is one major variable- weather. If mother nature does not cooperate, the project is put on hold which, for the dredge operators and even the approving agencies, can set the whole plan back or force its cancellation.
The value of our stable beaches, both financially and structurally, cannot be overlooked or overstated. They provide the core attraction for our county’s number one industry, tourism, which according to the county’s Tourism Development Authority (TDA), employed over 3,700 people last year alone, generating a payroll of $143.8 million, a 5% increase over the previous year.
In addition to the payroll and sales tax generated from tourism, the beaches play a major role in the county’s ad valorem tax base. Bogue Banks property owners underwrite close to 60% of the county’s property tax receipts, and because most of the property owners are only part-time residents, they put little stress on the county’s services, particularly the county’s public schools which consume over half of the county’s annual budget.
As for the structural value of our beaches, they are holding back the ocean. They are the county’s first defense in the case of major storms. It is our beach front facing a sometimes violent ocean that protects the county’s inland sounds that are important to our commercial and recreational fisheries, as well as protecting the inland communities where most of the county’s permanent residents live.
Our beaches are important and the sooner that nourishment planning begins the better. Our county’s economy, our livelihoods, homes and even our recreational opportunities are dependent on a quick conclusion – one that will hopefully better prepare us for that inevitable storm that is lurking somewhere in the atmosphere.
