Area beaches are battered, but they're ready for holiday

From the Press of Atlantic City
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/185/story/166222.html
By DONNA WEAVER Staff Writer, 609-978-2015
Published: Saturday, May 24, 2008

Beaches in the region are in as good a shape as they are going to be after a rare May northeaster rocked the southern New Jersey shore last week. Public works employees in local towns had less than one week to prepare the beaches for the unofficial kickoff of the summer season this weekend.

Beaches on Long Beach Island and stretching south to the shores of Atlantic City, Ocean City and Cape May are open, but evidence of the storm is still there.

Beach Haven on Long Beach Island was just named the ninth best beach in a public survey completed by the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium, or NJMSC. But last week, the borough's beaches were ravaged by winds upwards of
60 mph.

"I wouldn't go as far as saying that the beaches are back to normal after the storm that hit last week. We are as ready as we can be, considering all of the circumstances," said borough Administrator Richard Crane.

Crane added that the beaches will not be back to normal until closer to the middle of the summer season, as the sand naturally returns, since the borough will not be trucking sand in.

"All of our beaches and entrances are open, but we are asking people to exercise more care. The beaches may be a little steeper than what people are accustomed to. We tried to smooth it out as good as possible, but the storm did cut into the dunes," he said.
Portions of Long Beach Township were also hit hard by the storm, but Director of Public Works Andy Baron said the beaches were actually in perfect shape.

"The ramps coming down from the streets to the beaches are a little steep, but all the beaches are accessible," Baron said. "The beaches aren't as clean as we would like them to be, because we only had a short amount of time to clean them up of debris, but public safety-wise they are safe."

Holgate, at the southern tip of the island, was perhaps hit the hardest in last week's storm. Dune fence and cedar poles at the beach at Washington Avenue were ripped out of the sand. A bench that was placed at the beach entrance was thrown onto a stone jetty. Now, the beach is almost back to normal.

"Holgate is passable, and there is plenty of beach for people to sit and sunbathe. From Washington Avenue south, the dunes are cliffed off because we haven't had a chance to push the sand up on the dunes and make them slope," Baron said.

Optimism despite setbacks
Surf City has its own set of problems. After last week's storm, 13 munitions were found by the US Army Corps of Engineers, making the total discovered this spring 24. The beaches reopened last year just in time for the Memorial Day weekend after 1,100 munitions were found on the beaches.

This year, Surf City Mayor Leonard T. Connors said, people will come to the beaches by the scores.

"It's going to be one big, big year. Beach badge sales are going bananas," Connors said. "We're ahead 352 preseason beach badges sold last at this time."

Connors said there was significant erosion but no damage to the beaches that needed to be fixed before this weekend.

In Harvey Cedars, which perhaps was the municipality hardest hit on the 18-mile long island, the situation is still dire on the beaches.

"It's still bad," said Mayor John Oldham. "We're as ready as we're going to be. We need more time, we need the sand to come back in and we need the beach replenishment project."

More than a dozen oceanfront homeowners are still holding off on signing their easements to allow the corps and state Department of Environmental Protection access to their properties in order to complete a beach replenishment project.

Last week, the Hudson Avenue beach was breeched and the borough's Department of Public Works constructed a six-foot wall of dirt barricading the beach entrance.

"We've had three guys on the beach working every day pushing sand with machines, but there's still no beach," said Oldham.

In Stafford Township, just over the Route 72 causeway from Long Beach Island, a safety inspection conducted Friday determined the Jennifer Bay Beach is safe for swimming and will be open to the public. A portion of the beach, however, that was severely eroded from the recent storm will be roped off.

Township lifeguards walked the beach and determined there is no dropoff that would pose any type of safety hazard to the public using the beach, according to a news release from the township. Township lifeguards will be posted at the beach this weekend, the release said.

In Atlantic County, Brigantine's beaches were slammed by the Mother's Day storm, particularly near the north end of the island. But Ernie Purdy, the city's public-works boss,expects things to be ready on schedule for this weekend.

"I've got five guys down there working on it, and normally it's a two-man crew," he said this week."Now it's a matter of raking the beaches and getting rid of all that sea grass that washed up."

Still, he's glad that the city opens its beaches slowly, with just four spots offering protected swimming this weekend for a relatively early Memorial Day.

Dangers after the storm
In Longport, Beach Patrol Chief Dan Adams has been outfor early checks on the beaches, and he doesn't love what he sees.The area near the Margate city line came through the stormall right, but farther down in his town, "there are rock piles and groins exposed that I haven't seen in at least 10 years," Adams says.

One of his worries is the new sandbars and gullies he's seen shaping up in the last two weeks.

"You come back to something different every year, but not this dramatic," he says, adding that a steep gully at the front of the beach tends to worry lifeguards if the tide is coming in.

"When the water is getting deeper in the gully and people think they can still get out to the sandbar, that's when problems start," Adams said.

He expects to get some safety helpfrom a cold ocean - the water temperaturehad climbed to more than 60 degrees earlier this month, but a few weeks of steady westerly winds dropped it back to the mid-50s by the middle of this week.

"But regardless of the water temperature, kids will go in the ocean this weekend," he said. "So you have to make sure the guards are on their toes."

The not-so-bad
A Margate public-works supervisor said beaches there were mostly spared by last week's storm and weren't affected at all byanother day of windy rainthis week. Crews were finishing up last-minute details such as putting down walkways from the streets onto the beach and putting warning signs back in place.

"We're within about eight hours of having the beach perfect," Franz Adler said.

Atlantic City got an OK from the state Department of Environmental Protection for workers to smooth out dunes in the Inlet area that the storm left scarred with steep cliffs.

"It was a public-safety issue because of the chance of sand slides," said Rod Aluise, the Beach Patrol chief. "We got permission to slope the face of the dune down to make it safe and give people access to the beach. It makes the beach look great. It looks useable, it is useable, and we'll be ready for Saturday morning."

Ocean City embarked this week on a $7.5 million beach replenishment project on its north end, between the Ocean City-Longport Bridge and 12th Street. This covers the city's popular downtown beaches hardest hit by coastal erosion. That project should wrap up by mid-June, providing ample shoreline for vacationers.

In Upper Township's Strathmere, the beaches on the north end and at Whale Beach were hardest hit by coastal storms.

Beaches in Avalon and Stone Harbor will be significantly smaller as well.

Cape May begins its season with seven open beaches, all of which are in good condition.

Staff writers Martin DeAngeliss and Michael Miller contributed to this report.

To e-mail Donna Weaver at The Press:
DWeaver@pressofac.com