October 28, 2013 — One year after Superstorm Sandy threatened the heart of Delaware’s tourism industry, few signs of the massive storm are visible along the state’s ocean beaches.
Federal money was used to dredge nearly 2 million cubic yards of sand offshore and pump it onto beaches scoured by Sandy. The worst damage occurred at the new four-lane bridge spanning Indian River Inlet, where punishing waves drove sand drifts 6 feet deep over Del. 1.
Federal engineers have widened and beefed up the inlet’s north beach to protect the highway. Sand replenishment is underway at Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach. And a plan for remedying chronic flooding at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge – which should benefit beleaguered homeowners at Prime Hook Beach and Slaughter Beach – has finally been laid, and federal dollars allocated.
Delaware was lucky compared to our neighbors to the north.
Shortly before Sandy made landfall, forecasters showed it barreling across Delaware. Had it not hit a patch of cold air and turned northward, Gov. Jack Markell said, “the impact on people’s lives would have been profoundly traumatic.”
Homeowners living along Delaware’s side of Delaware Bay have to travel only 12 miles across the water to see how people in New Jersey continue to struggle after the monster storm unleashed its fury on homes dotting the shoreline.
'Big Blow'
A year after Sandy, residents of Fortescue, N.J., and other hamlets along New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore believe their state and country have forsaken them. They’re insulted by the governor’s feel better mantra, “stronger than the storm,” which at this point has added insult to the losses they’ve endured.
They are still recovering from a watery pounding that destroyed bulkheads and snapped support pilings like toothpicks. Homes in Fortescue 10 feet above the bay were slammed with waves of muddy water that crashed sliding glass doors and inundated living spaces.
While aid was rushed into Jersey’s ocean communities after Sandy, villages along the bayshore have received little to no taxpayer money to help with storm cleanup and repairs.
“Everything is a battle here,” said Downe Township Mayor Robert Campbell of his struggle to get state and federal help for bay communities in Cumberland County, N.J. “Nothing has happened on Delaware Bay.”
Campbell said 185 bayfront residents in three communities would love to elevate their homes under a Federal Emergency Management Agency mitigation program. But they have little chance because they’re competing with property owners elsewhere in New Jersey – particularly those in nine northern counties designated as being hardest hit.
Cumberland County didn’t make that cut – and not because the damage was slight. On the contrary, there was a marina at Gandys Beach that was almost completely destroyed, houses in Fortescue that were deemed uninhabitable and places that even today are surrounded by water.
One house has slipped into Delaware Bay, its contents tumbling into a mass of debris in what used to be a living room. An inn that dates back to the earliest days of Fortescue as an upscale resort likely won’t be reopened because it was so badly damaged.
The storm wiped some homes off the lots they occupied, leaving holes along the waterfront. Owners now debate whether to rebuild costly bulkheads first (a cost not covered by FEMA flood insurance) or start home construction.
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