OCEAN CITY- Winterstorm Jonas was certainly not Ocean City Engineer Terry McGean’s first rodeo when it comes to overseeing the clean-up efforts after a major storm in the resort.
He’s been at this for over three decades and has been on the front lines for some of the most powerful storms in the resort’s history, including Superstorm Sandy. Yet, while McGean says Ocean City has had more than its fair share of experience with intense storms over the years, the biggest thing to remember is that the city learns from each storm and improves its preparatory efforts accordingly.
However, in recent years, McGean says that powerful storms have been happening much more than usual, and that unfortunate fact seems to justify the immense resources dedicated to securing our coastline and our community from the sheer brute force that Mother Nature often throws our way.
Q: So, are we starting this conversation the way we have many times in the past: Ocean City got lucky. Is that the big takeaway from this storm?
A: Yeah, I think the good news is that we were pretty fortunate. Once again, the beach and the dunes did their job. We had no oceanside flooding. We had bayside flooding, water in the streets and it was relatively minor, and certainly not to the extent of what we saw during Sandy. We had some fears and were getting some predictions that the tides might be at Sandy elevations and that would have been much worse bayside flooding. But again, we didn’t see those tide levels and certainly on the ocean, while the tide wasn’t that high, the difference between this storm and Joaquin was that the seas were much rougher. It looks like we did experience some higher beach erosion and dune damage than what I was initially hoping for prior to the storm.
Q: I know you went out earlier this week with the Army Corps of Engineers to assess the damage and to look at the beach and to see what is left and determine what you are going to have to do in the wake of this storm. Tell me about that ride down the beach.
A: The good news is that we have a beautiful, large sand bar right off shore, and that will come back and reattach to the beach. It was good to see that and it was the first time I was able to see the beach at a good low tide. So, we have a lot of good sand material in the system that will reattach itself and affords us protection from future storms moving forward. The bad news is that the dune suffered some considerable damage. In no areas did we lose all of the dune, but in some areas we lost probably about a third to half of the dune. Mostly in our usual hotspots: 33rd street, 75th to 85th streets, a little bit on Condo Row, and then up from about 144th to 146th. Our first order of business is to get debris off the beach, and the next order of business will be to restore some beach access areas so we can get vehicles on the beach. The state will be starting that on Monday with contractors coming in. We also need to get some better survey information. We know we have sand material built up, especially on the south end. I think the next order of business is to haul that material up and begin dune repairs. We are also kind of fortunate that we are also doing some canal dredging. I went up and looked at some of the sand we got yesterday (from the dredging) and it looks like we have some really nice sand, so that quickly changed our direction. Instead of us trucking it off site to a location in Bishopville, we are going to take that sand and use it to repair the dune.
Q: So that sand that is in the system is either going to be moved, repurposed, or naturally allowed to reattach to the system. For people who aren’t overly familiar with how long this process takes, how long does it take for the sand that has created that sand bar just off shore, to reattach itself to the beach naturally?
A: It will depend a little bit on which way the wind blows and whether or not we get another nor’easter here in the next few weeks. Assuming we don’t get another nor’easter for a few weeks, and we get a nice northwesterly breeze, which is what we typically see, I would expect that sandbar to start reattaching itself in three or four weeks. You can go out there and see it right now, it’s pretty amazing.
Q: During a storm, the pictures we see are quite dramatic, and after the storm leaves, those pictures are equally as dramatic and in some cases, more so. But, what has always been remarkable to me is how quickly the city responds to the clean-up effort. Try and quantify the day after the storm, that Herculean effort to try and clean up after the storm.
A: I guess the easiest way to put it into perspective is that we are trying to move sand instead of snow. It is very similar to that effort. We are immediately trying to get things back open. We are mobilizing crews and bringing people in on overtime, just like they are doing on the other side of the bridge to deal with snow, but we are doing it with sand, and snow fence and debris. It’s something we do, not super regularly, but it’s not out of the ordinary. We have plans put in place, we know who to call, and we know how to take care of it.
Q: We sort of got a winter’s worth of different types of precipitation in 24-48 hours, so was there anything about this storm that made the situation that much more dire or challenging than other storms; particularly, the cold weather and the colder flood waters?
A: Again, we were lucky because the tides didn’t get so high. We did have the National Guard vehicles in place that allow us to evacuate people should the need arise through some pretty high water. The issue for us, and probably our biggest challenge was that the same guys that were running the snow plows were also the ones clearing the sand. They haven’t had a lot of rest, and it has been very taxing on them.
Q: As you look northward, at some of the smaller and much skinnier Delaware beaches and the damage that this storm caused, what does that tell you about our dune system and how Ocean City has learned to prepare for storms in general?
A: I think the first thing it shows you is how important it is to have both the dune and the beach. If you just build the dune without building up the beach in front of it to protect it, it can go away very quickly. Once that dune is gone, you are way more vulnerable. So having that beach there to absorb that wave energy in front of the dune is very important, and I think we’ve seen the foresight in the building limit line in not allowing construction to continually encroach the East. For the city council to have that foresight in the 70’s, I think has been a tremendous asset to the town in protection.
Q: If you talk to people in the community, you hear some of the same sentiments expressed that we are talking about: ‘we got really lucky’, ‘we were prepared’, and ‘the dunes did their job’. But, the other thing you hear is the question of ‘what if we got hit again?’ Just how vulnerable are we right now if another storm were to come in a week, or two weeks, or a month?
A: In my opinion, we are in pretty good shape for another storm. So if we got another one right now, before we’d had a chance to do some repairs to the dunes, after that one, I think we’d be in much worse shape. We have another storm in us with the amount of dune we have left. But, we are not wasting any time. We are out there today starting to repair it, and we will continue those efforts as rapidly as we can to make sure that we have that full level protection from the dunes. So, I’m comfortable with one more storm, but I think a second storm would leave us (vulnerable) in a lot of areas. We saw that happen in 1998 and in 1991 and 1992 when we had some quick back to back storms that left us with no dune at all. That’s what we are trying to avoid.
Q: You have been doing this a long time, and you have many storms under your belt as far as cleanup and preparation. There’s a growing conversation from scientists, and people who live in coastal communities and from those who don’t, that say that storms are getting stronger, bigger and becoming these ‘freaks of mother nature’, so to speak. In your purview, as you compare all the storms that you’ve worked on, are these storms in recent years any different than the ones we’ve seen in the past?
A: I think the big difference is that we are seeing them more frequently. If I’ve noticed anything, it’s that. It used to be that we would have four years between storms, and it seems like we are getting them every other year now. We’ve been fortunate in that we’ve been able to stay on our four-year beach renourishment cycle. They’ve hit, but we’ve had enough beach to repair it, but I think that, at least in the near term, they have been more frequent.
Q: In your talk with the Army Corps of Engineers, was their talk about doing emergency beach replenishment or is that something that you’ll determine in the next few weeks after you see how the system repairs itself naturally?
A: That’s a two-part question. We will be doing work on the dune. That is going to happen. The second piece to that is will it involve dredging, and that’s too early to tell. It’s in our mind and we are discussing that. I think the need for that is much more likely than it was after Joaquin. So, that’s a very serious consideration right now.