What a difference a year makes.
One year ago, the town was bracing for what many deemed at best the inconvenience of the 2014 beach renourishment project. With its gurgling giant pipes strung horizontally down the beach, the constant action of heavy equipment, the noise, the lights, the navigational hazard of the barge and equipment in the inlet, this every-four-year event is not high on everyone’s favorite things list, until a storm is coming.
Post Tropical Storm Ana, town officials are all smiles and everyone you speak to is touting the benefits of last year’s $9.7 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project that pumped and sculpted approximately 750,000 cubic yards of sand on the beach strand from the town’s south end at Masonboro Inlet north to Sand Dollar Lane.
Storm damage reduction work began in late April 2014.
The project began late, and to the disgruntlement of many, lingered into the 2014 Memorial Day weekend, with equipment still in front of the Holiday Inn for the national beach-going, bake-your-body-in-the-sun weekend, but a year later, that sand has made all the difference. Riding the beach strand after a winter of northeasters and the first tropical event, it is obvious much of what was pumped onto the beach to protect the town is still there.
An early Wednesday morning drive along Wrightsville’s beach strand with the park ranger solidifies the assertion that beach renourishment, correctly redubbed last year: storm damage mitigation (before hand) and storm damage reduction projects (after the fact), actually work and work well.
Prolific television news coverage about how bad the post tropical storm damage has been created a great deal of spin as officials up and down the coast defended their turf after the storm passed. Officials say all of the county’s beaches fared pretty well as the first tropical storm of the year lingered offshore before landfall at North Myrtle Beach with 45 mph winds and record-breaking soaking rainfall locally. The storm’s slow speed churned up the sea and pushed high tides to the dune lines, creating measurable impacts to beaches along the South and North Carolina coasts.
In South Carolina, early accounts identified Cherry Grove at the north end of Myrtle’s busy beach strand as having the most erosion.
Carolina Beach’s north end erroded from the 1500 to 1800 block of Carolina Beach Avenue North to the town’s pier at Salt Marsh Lane. On Carolina Beach the escarpment, or drop off, is reportedly high; getting any official to say how high is difficult.
There is no denying the worst impact was at the south end of the rock revetment on the north end of Carolina Beach Avenue North just before the pier, and again on the northernmost end of Freeman Park at the curve before the inlet. The town manager was too busy to take or return a phone call but said in a Wednesday email to The Sandman, Layton Bedsole, New Hanover County shore protection manager, that there was no ocean overwash in any section of the town.
Carolina Beach saw beach strand erosion as high as 6-foot drop offs along Carolina Beach Avenue North after storms this February. The town’s last Corps authorized project was conducted in 2013. The next storm damage reduction project is scheduled for the fall of this year, FY/2016.
At Wrightsville, officials, residents and beachgoers are counting their blessings this week.
Wave action on the extreme south end at the bird sanctuary pushed tides all the way to the dunes but did not eat into the dunes. Word was a nest or two may have been lost, but plenty of shorebirds were obviously in residence in the habitat and along the water’s edge.
The spring 2014 storm that left a big beach escarpment in the middle of the beach strand and ate away the beach to the point emergency vehicles could not stay in the emergency lane did not reoccur, although a moderate one in the middle of the island had a town dozer pushing up ramps for emergency vehicles Wednesday morning and reinforcing the sand at bases of several of the lifeguard stands. The mayor says grading of the escarpment will follow.
In the untouched area north of the Holiday Inn, the damage is minimal and the beach is in stellar shape. Water pooled south of Mercer’s Pier and reached the dunes on the north end all the way to the inlet. The toe of the easternmost dunes was visibly impacted by wave action, but held up well. Shell Island had pooling water to the volleyball area. Bedsole said in the waterbird nesting area, two to three posts delineating the protected area, had to be relocated 15 to 20 feet landward.
Overall, it is surprising how well the beach responded to a tropical storm that sat offshore for days.
This is exactly why storm damage mitigation is crucial to the town’s infrastructure: the roads, utility lines the business district, as well as primary and second homes and vacation rentals, aka the town’s tax base. No tax base, no tax revenue, no businesses, no sales tax revenue, creates a downward spiral that no one truly wants, besides no place to spread out a towel.
The benefit of these ongoing storm damage mitigation and reduction projects cannot be overstated. The beach is in a constant state of accreting and eroding. Without these projects the town could find itself in dire straits.
In addition to protecting the town, the 2014 storm damage mitigation project’s success translated into a gleaming stretch of white sandy beach for all to enjoy.
