OCEAN CITY — After a pounding Nor’easter that essentially wiped out Springfest, city officials report the beach held strong, although an assessment of damage to the event’s tents is being assessed.
Springfest opened last Thursday as planned and the event enjoyed a successful first two days. However, with the major Nor’easter heading toward the resort area, Town of Ocean City officials knew there would be pending decisions on Springfest over the weekend.
With high winds, heavy rain and tidal flooding anticipated, the town announced on Friday that Springfest would closing at 8 p.m. on Saturday, although hope was held out the Starship concert featuring Mickey Thomas could still be held at the Inlet event. On Saturday morning, the town announced Springfest would not be opening due to flooding, but discussions were ongoing about the status of the Starship concert. By late Saturday afternoon, with tides rising at the Inlet lot and throughout town, and winds of up to 45 mph and heavy rain, the town announced the concert had been cancelled. Refunds were available at the point of purchase.
“With standing water in the entertainment pavilion and increased wind gust projections, we simply cannot risk the safety of our concertgoers or staff,” said City Manager Terry McGean at the time. “This is not the Springfest we had hoped for, but our hardworking employees and vendors did the very best they could with challenging circumstances. We look forward to a bigger and brighter Springfest in 2023.”
Monday broke sunny and clear although high winds remained and heavy surf continued to pound the beach. McGean said on Monday afternoon despite taking a pounding all weekend, the beaches in the resort, which had just been replenished this winter, had held up with not much damage or erosion.
“The beach has held up fine so far,” he said. “There is just a lot of sand in the crossovers that will have to be cleared out.”
As far as the Springfest event itself, McGean said the tent vendor was on site on Monday to assess the damage to the tents.
“We had damage to a number of the craft tents at Springfest from the tent stakes pulling out of the ground,” he said. “The tent owner is on site assessing the damage now.”
McGean said efforts were made to better secure the tents with the storm pending, but there was some damage nonetheless.
“We brought in heavy equipment on Saturday to help secure them the best we could,” he said. “Fortunately, all of the vendors had packed up before the worst wind hit, so none of their inventory was damaged and, most importantly, no one was hurt.”
