Posted on August 20, 2020
Russell, now retired from his post as Lake Bluff’s village engineer, knew the wooden planks with long nails were a sign that some homeowner’s bluff had failed — certainly as a result of waves eating away at the toe of the bluff, creating an unstable slope.
“The (planks) were clearly the remnants of someone’s staircase or deck system that was located on a bluff that just collapsed,” Russell said. “It was fresher-looking lumber.”
Many coastal experts and public officials throughout the North Shore say a ruined staircase or deck system may be just the beginning of the potential damage posed by a changing Lake Michigan shoreline.
While lake levels rise and fall in cycles, the lake’s sharp swing from a record low to record highs in just six years has some lakefront managers wondering if this represents a new normal.
“We are seeing within the past decade more intense storms and greater fluctuation in lake levels,” said David Bucaro, outreach manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The past six years marked the greatest rate of change in a century of record-keeping, he said.
In A Changing North Shore, Pioneer Press has examined the consequences of rising Lake Michigan water levels and an eroding shoreline, and the choices facing suburban homeowners trying to protect prime real estate and public officials working to preserve treasured community assets.
It’s a problem that is very much top of mind for leaders and residents, but experts say long-term fixes remain elusive for the region.
One reason lakefront storm damage has been grabbing headlines lately is that existing breakwaters and onshore protections were not designed for the statistically improbable combination of lake levels and wave heights battering beaches and parks.
That’s why a storm surge in January over-topped breakwaters and revetments, twisted guardrails at a Lake Bluff beach and flooded structures constructed on dry land.
Source: Coastal News Today
