While flooding caused from Hurricane Matthew continued to plague river towns in eastern North Carolina on Wednesday, Wrightsville Beach escaped the storm with little in the way of damage.
On Wednesday, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said the storm had claimed 19 lives so far in North Carolina, mostly due to flooding. But waters in Wrightsville Beach remained under control during the weekend storm, which saw its peak Saturday night with 70 mph wind gusts.
Wrightsville Beach had pumps operating early in the week to keep the sewers running properly and there was minor damage in some places, including to one of the island’s few high-rise buildings, Shell Island Resort. Notably, beach erosion appeared to be minor.
“We fared pretty well. All and all, it could have been worse,” said town manager Tim Owens.
Layton Bedsole, New Hanover County shore protection coordinator, said the limited impact on Wrightsville Beach showed the county’s coastal storm damage reduction program was proving effective.
“The coastal storm damage reduction project worked. It protected our coastal infrastructure, it protected our small businesses and it protected our tourism industry,” Bedsole said. “We had no dune breaching, no erosion of structures from storm surge and no flooding from the storm surge.”
There was also some flooding in the central business district Saturday, as the area on North Lumina Avenue from Stone Street to Columbia Street was prone to tidal flooding coming through the storm drains, but it had mostly disappeared by the evening, Owens said.
Wrightsville Beach Mayor Bill Blair said that most of the damage to the town was minor and mainly involved lost shingles or storm drains. A few floating docks were dislodged, Blair said, including his own.
“The town and the staff did a great job,” Blair said. “They were well organized, they were out there and they were prepared for worse.”
Because of the flooding on Lumina Avenue and nearby Channel Avenue, the town may be quicker to shut off traffic, as it eventually did for a while Saturday afternoon. Blair said he saw some drivers in trucks creating wakes and waves “like 3-year-olds” in the flooding on Channel Avenue.
By Sunday, businesses that had boarded up for the storm were open, as people flocked to collect seashells and enjoy the fall temperatures the storm brought.
At Shell Island Resort, winds tore holes in the building’s north- and west-side exteriors, exposing pipes and cables. Staff said the resort was closed Saturday night when the worst of the winds battered Wrightsville Beach.
There was also some amount of erosion from the storm and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Monday surveyed Wrightsville Beach and on Tuesday surveyed Carolina Beach and Kure Beach. Robert Keistler, civil works program and project management branch supervisor for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Wilmington district, said engineers used hand-held GPS devices to measure the elevations at different points on the beach both before and after the storm.
With those results, the Army Corps of Engineers would be able to complete a damage-assessment report and judge the impact the storm had on the beaches. The study will determine the volume of sand moved from the beach.
Keistler said from the initial assessment, Wrightsville Beach appeared to suffer the least amount of erosion from the storm of the four beaches the corps monitors, but engineers couldn’t be sure until a full survey had been completed.
If a significant amount of sand had eroded from the beach, the Army Corps of Engineers could be able to get supplemental funding to restore the beach to sand levels before the storm, but not to the levels from after a beach renourishment project.
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