2013 Annual Report - To the city of North Wildwood on the condition of the city beaches
Creators: name: No Name Supplied
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2014

description: This annual report presents the status of the beaches within the City of North Wildwood for 2013 and recovery since Hurricane Sandy eroded the beaches for a net loss of 153,000 cubic yards of sand from the municipal beaches during the storm. Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City as a result the storm waves and surge caused extensive severe erosion along much of the Jersey shore, especially hard hit were the regions north of Atlantic City. North Wildwood was fortunate as the path put the City on the weaker southern quadrant of the storm as it moved onshore where the surge and winds are reduced. Sandy still caused significant beach and dune erosion and damages to property and infrastructure but the City was sparred damages and destruction suffered in communities of Ocean County. The City’s engineered beach absorbed and attenuated the storm waves and surge along most of the engineered shoreline. However, the storm did produce extensive tidal surge flooding exceeding that seen December 1992 by 12 to 18 inches. As a result white water waves rolled across the flooded beach and washed into the dunes. Post storm surveys showed sand deposits at the seaward dune slope derived from the berm and beachface that had eroded and retreated between 75 and 125 feet during the storm. The north end beach was eroded landward to the revetment sea wall. Waves overwashed the top into Kennedy Boulevard. To the south the dune and beach seaward of the piers were eroded and water swept into the City streets across the beach. The piers survived, but the shoreline had retreated to the seaward ends of the piers at high tide. Following Sandy the focus in 2013 was on restoration of the Jersey shore, its beaches and dunes. Local, State and Federal efforts have helped shore communities devastated by the storm recover and rebuild. In North Wildwood those efforts included a beach nourishment maintenance project to restore the engineered project beaches. Over the course of the last four years there has been five Presidential disaster declarations made for New Jersey’s coast in response to three northeast storms and two hurricanes, starting with a strong nor’easter November 11-13, 2009 to most recently Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012. Each of these presidential declarations has allowed the City to be eligible for FEMA reimbursement under Category “G” losses to an engineered beach project to share the cost of sand replacement following each storm event. Norfolk Dredging commenced beach nourishment efforts on June 12, 2013 and by July 2, 2013 had placed 150,530 cubic yards of sand in North Wildwood to restore the erosion caused by Sandy. In addition, natural recovery added to the placed sand totaling an amount of 283,285 cubic yards or 132,755 cubic yards of sand returned to the beach naturally above the placed volume. This past year was dominated by relatively calm weather and seas from December, 2012 to October 2013 with the exception of winter Storm Saturn that impacted the Jersey coast on March 5-6 but caused only modest beach erosion in North Wildwood. On October 10, 2013 72 hours of persistent 30 knot plus onshore winds generated storm waves that caused erosion along the Cape May County shoreline. Despite the erosion from these small storm events the 2013 beach maintenance project finished by July 2, 2013 helped to partially stabilize the erosional shorelines seaward of the south end piers and along the north end beaches near Hereford Inlet following Hurricane Sandy.