The great Nov'ember Nor'easter of 2009: Let's Review
The Downashore team reports throughout the summer on the latest news, information and musings from up and down the coast.
The great Nov'ember Nor'easter of 2009: Let's Review
As the sun sets, literally, on the great pounding, soaking, flooding, road-and-bridge-closing, house shaking, dune-eviscerating, step-busting November noreaster of 2009, I have to say. It sure looks pretty out there tonight!
Being in the middle of all the hubbub, I have to say, it didn't feel as bad as it sounded on television or in the papers. I mean, we're used to high tide road closings and back bay street flooding, and nor'easters that chop up the beach and shake the house. Mostly, we went about our business, at least in Atlantic County, which was not as bad off as the barrier islands in Cape May County. And it was fun to see all the summer people down to take a look today! Everything's pretty much still here! Still, when I went out this evening to take a look arond (I had been deported all day to the pristine and dry astroturf of a field somewhere in Cumberland County for a riveting and relocated Pleasantville Jokers-Ventnor Pirates football game), it was clear Ida definitely took with her a chunk of the beach in Ventnor, at least below New Haven. You can see here, the steps no longer reach the beach.
Rut ro! What was left of the dunes in this part of town was washed away. But, funny thing, at low tide, there was actually more beach than usual, without those pesky dunes in the way. Mother Nature has a funny way of making more space for your beach chair, Ventnorites. Still, it's a long way to Memorial Day, and who knows what man and mom will conspire to put back, and take away, from the beach.
In any case, use CAUTION!
Because stuff that was formerly an easy way down, now, could lead to kind of a hard landing.
YIKES.
Anyway, it seems like it may be an interesting winter, if this is what November is cooking up. The politicians are looking to get some beach replenishment funds and sand back our way and will no doubt be taking the big back hoes to repair dunes like this one on the Ventnor-Margate border that got ripped into.
In any case, who knows how it will all shake out in terms of what the beaches will look like by May or, more to the point, July. But I'm glad this wicked little storm has passed. It was impossible weather to walk a dog in, and enough with the flooding and road closings. Then again, the Dorset Ave. Bridge in Ventnor is going to close for four months for repairs, Exit 2 off the Expressway was already shut down, the same roads will no doubt flood at high tide even without a big nor'easter, and so it kind of all seems part and parcel of life down here.
Until next time, here's another sunset picture, looking toward Margate from the Ventnor Boardwalk, water rushing right past where the dunes used to be. Sure is pretty.
Inquirer Staff Writer Jacqueline L. Urgo has spent every summer of her life at the Jersey Shore, and has lived there year-round for nearly 30 years, even fulfilling one of her bucket list dreams by once living in a house by the sea.
Since 1990, she has covered the waterfront for The Inquirer — from the Atlantic to the Delaware Bay shore — and some of the mainland in between. Along the way, she amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of this tear-it-down-and-build-it-back-up region, delving into the history and the hype of a place with a lot of unexpected stories to tell. Email her here: jurgo@phillynews.com.
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