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A rising Shore challenge: Protecting back bays

SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. - Images of cars, patio furniture, and chunks of ice floating in floodwaters during last month's powerful storm brought home to the public that the infrastructure along the Jersey Shore's back bays needs to be fortified.

Max Sorensen kayaked along Third Avenue in Stone Harbor after last month’s storm. The storm caused more than $70 million in damage in Atlantic and Cape May Counties alone.
Max Sorensen kayaked along Third Avenue in Stone Harbor after last month’s storm. The storm caused more than $70 million in damage in Atlantic and Cape May Counties alone.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer

SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. - Images of cars, patio furniture, and chunks of ice floating in floodwaters during last month's powerful storm brought home to the public that the infrastructure along the Jersey Shore's back bays needs to be fortified.

It's a situation that barrier island residents like Chris Rakus have experienced year after year.

"The beachfront always gets a lot of attention . . . but it's back here that the real damage happens whenever there is flooding. And it seems like it's getting worse and more frequent," said Rakus, whose family lost two cars last month and spent days cleaning up the first level of their home, a block from the bay here. "We need help back here."

But how soon help will arrive is unclear. The state is just beginning to study possible solutions to the bay predicament.

Cape May County officials say Sea Isle City was the hardest-hit barrier island town - with about $24 million in damage - during the ferocious late January storm in which a full moon and sustained onshore winds pulled record-setting high tides into the bays along the coast.

Barrier islands in the three counties from Long Beach Island to Cape May were flooded by more than three feet of icy water during three high-tide cycles over a 24-hour period, which caused more than $70 million in damage to homes, businesses, and public infrastructure in Atlantic and Cape May Counties alone. Much of the destruction occurred along the bay-front areas, officials said.

Gov. Christie on Thursday announced the state will seek a Major Disaster Declaration for 17 New Jersey counties where an estimated $82.6 million in damage has been tallied.

"Most of the damage here came from the flooding from the bay," said Stone Harbor Mayor Suzanne Walters, who presides over a town that was hit hard by the storm.

Walters said the town's recently replaced 7.5-foot-high bay-front bulkhead held up well during the storm, but the flooding was so high that water washed over it and into the streets, damaging homes and downtown businesses.

"Is the answer to go up even higher . . . to 10 feet?" Walters wondered. "We really just don't have any answers right now."

The Shore's beaches have long been the focus of federal projects, and massive amounts of funding has poured in to fatten the strands and build protective dunes along the oceanfront - including a post-Hurricane Sandy edict by the Christie administration to create a 127-mile dune system along the state's entire Atlantic Coast.

Officials now are beginning to turn their attention to the bay shore.

And while each beach town's oceanfront is unique and each sand-replenishment project includes detailed design schematics created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the specific geology and hydrology of each locale, officials contend that the bay front is an even more intricate patchwork of public and private needs.

"The scope is huge. . . . There are a lot of problems, but a lot of potential solutions, too," said J. Bailey Smith, a regional technical specialist for the Army Corps' National Coastal Planning Center of Expertise in Philadelphia. "What may work for Ocean City may not work in North Wildwood, so there is a lot to look at."

A year ago, the Army Corps issued a report to the state noting that while New Jersey oceanfront dune projects should continue, there is a specific and urgent need to address back-bay flooding.

"Storm-surge barriers are unlikely to be viable given the expected future frequency of flooding," the report warned.

Smith said his agency is working with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to reach an agreement to begin a feasibility study to look at how the government can design, implement, and construct a cohesive risk-management plan for the back-bay areas in the state.

The DEP and the Army Corps will share the cost of the study, which could take more than three years to complete and is expected to run about $3 million. It is unclear how much it ultimately could cost the state and the federal government to implement such a plan, according to Smith.

The plan likely will look at raising quay walls, rebuilding aging bulkheads, raising bayside homes above sea level, and installing flaps on drain pipes and other measures to control flooding, Smith said.

"Right now we really are still examining the exact scope of the study, and we are considering two broad pathways," Smith said. "One is a comprehensive approach that will look at the possible structural changes for a town's entire back bay, and another that looks at strategies for the entire back-bay coast as a whole."

Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the state DEP, said that while the agency is in the "very early stages of taking a holistic look" at the state's back-bay areas, it already has launched several initiatives to better protect coastal communities with bay flooding issues.

In one project in southern Monmouth County, in an area known as Wreck Pond, the DEP worked with the community and the American Littoral Society to address flooding issues and improve storm-water control with installation of naturally vegetated berms and a "living" shoreline, Hajna said.

Hajna said protecting the bay front statewide ultimately is going to "take a combination of strategies."

"Simply building bulkheads higher may not always be the best solution, because this can merely shift the flooding problem to another area of the same community or the next community," Hajna said.

"Barrier islands are very dynamic places - both on the ocean side and the bay side," he said. "Ever since Sandy, the DEP has been working on innovative approaches that bring together a host of partners on the federal level - universities, nonprofits, and especially local governments - to make the coastline more resilient."

609-652-8382 @JacquelineUrgo jurgo@phillynews.com