The abstracts of this issue are below. Note that ASBPA members only now have access to a full digital edition of Shore & Beach (click here). Become a member now to get immediate access to the latest issue!
From the Guest Editors’ Desk: Hurricane Sandy: 10 years later
Dan Barone, Jon Miller, and Kimberly McKenna
Planning and design of three USACE New York District projects
Suzana Rice, P.E., and Lynn M. Bocamazo, P.E.
https://doi.org/10.34237/1009141
The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) New York District (NYD) has had a tremendous impact on an approximately $6 billion comprehensive coastal storm risk management program in the last 10 years since Hurricane Sandy caused significant damage in the New York (NY) and New Jersey (NJ) area. There was 2013- 2014 emergency repair and restoration to existing beach nourishment and navigation projects, but also USACE NYD accomplished the planning and design for multiple coastal storm risk management projects in the NY and NJ area. Of those projects, specific coastal risk reduction features are described for the Sea Bright to Manasquan, NJ; East Rockaway Inlet to Rockaway Inlet, NY; and Montauk Point Lighthouse Stabilization, NY. The planning and design for these projects exemplifies resilience principles and planned adaptability to withstand the challenges of the dynamic coastal environment. The USACE NYD is faced with numerous challenges such as environmental restrictions, politics, real estate, sea level change, etc.; the magnitude of coastal planning, design and construction that has occurred over these past 10 years for the NYD studies and projects demonstrates the fortitude of collaboration combined with current and innovative engineering principles.
State of the shoreline since Hurricane Sandy: Summary of changes at New Jersey Beach Profile Network (NJBPN) sites
Kimberly K. McKenna, Stewart Farrell, Steven Hafner, Crist Robine, Holly Pimpinelli, Matthew Deibert, Evan D’Ambrosio, James Richards, and Danielle Dyson
https://doi.org/10.34237/1009142
Following the devastating impacts from Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, Congress passed Public Law 113-2 in January 2013 which provided the funding for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to restore authorized federal coastal storm risk management projects in New Jersey to their original design templates. Between 2013 and 2016, approximately 28.3 million cubic yards of sand were used to rebuild the beaches and dunes along 92.7 miles of the 127-mile Atlantic Ocean shoreline (an average of 283,290 cubic yards per mile). Between 2017 and 2019, initial federal beachfill had been completed at the northern Ocean County beaches (an additional 11 million cubic yards). A review of the changes to the New Jersey Beach Profile Network (NJBPN) locations indicates that this influx of sand benefitted nearly all shorelines as well as former erosion hot spots. Examples are provided from each of the four counties (Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic, Cape May) to show trends in profile volume and shoreline position. State support of beach nourishment continues through the efforts of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and its Office of Coastal Engineering.
Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the Borough of Mantoloking, NJ, October 2012
Stewart Farrell
https://doi.org/10.34237/1009143
Hurricane Sandy hit Mantoloking, New Jersey, 29 October 2012, heavily damaging both residential and municipal infrastructure located on a barrier spit extending south from Manasquan Inlet in Ocean County, NJ. Due to the storm, residential property values dropped by $528.3 million and more than $5 million in recovery expenses were incurred by the borough. The Herbert Avenue inlet breach severed all infrastructure and critical services to the rest of the peninsula with the Federal Highway Administration, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) bearing $265 million to restore State Highway 35, including $23.8 million to install a vertical steel bulkhead along 3.5 miles of oceanfront shoreline. In addition, individual oceanfront residential owners living north of Lyman Street spent between $48,000 and $72,000 each on a rock revetment linking the steel wall with a pre-existing rock revetment which ended in Bay Head, the neighboring community to the north. The oceanfront owners formed an alliance allowing them to contract as a group for this project. Finally, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District, entered into an agreement with the State of New Jersey to construct a dune 14 miles long and 22 feet high (NAVD 88) with between a 75- and 220-foot-wide berm seaward of that dune between Seaside Park in the south and Point Pleasant Beach just north of Bay Head. This project was completed in Mantoloking in 2019 with an initial construction cost of $122.05 million. This project’s commitment is for 50 years after the Corps and New Jersey signed the state aid agreement extending into 2065.
Quantifying the influence of profile variability on dune impacts during Hurricane Sandy
Ian J. Day, Matthew S. Janssen, Heather MacLachlan, Audrey Fanning, and Jon K. Miller
https://doi.org/10.34237/1009144
Hurricane Sandy was undoubtedly one of the most impactful storms of the past half century, resulting in $74 billion of damage and destroying thousands of homes. Yet not all communities suffered the same. In New Jersey, impacts exhibited mesoscale trends with northern portions of the state generally suffering greater damage than the southern portions. Mantoloking experienced widespread major damage; however, less than 5 km away, Point Pleasant escaped with significantly less damage. The disparate outcomes are associated with vastly different berm widths and dune volumes, with Point Pleasant protected by wider, more resilient beaches. Here, a recently developed dune vulnerability model is used to quantify differences in vulnerability resulting from spatial variations in storm intensity and pre-storm morphology for beaches along the New Jersey coastline. Spatial analysis of pre-Sandy beach conditions exhibits trends in vulnerability, which align with observed impacts. The vulnerability analysis accounts for gradients in storm intensity, dune volume, and berm width. Comparison of different outcomes while isolating for a single variable (e.g. intensity, volume or width) suggests the vulnerability model is robust and can quantify temporal vulnerability due to changes in beach state. For example, the results suggest Point Pleasant Beach would have been four times as likely to suffer major impacts had Sandy occurred with beach conditions observed in 1995.
JALBTCX rapid-response aerial survey reconnaissance missions
C. Sylvester, J. Wozencraft, Q. Robertson, Z. Dong, and L. Dunkin
https://doi.org/10.34237/1009145
Airborne Lidar and imagery is the technology of choice for mapping and quantifying impacts and conducting storm damage assessments in the aftermath of extreme storm events. Following land-falling hurricanes, for example, this technology provides data at high spatial resolution over hundreds of kilometers of hurricane-impacted shorelines in rapid fashion. To support the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and others in their emergency response mission areas, the Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise (JALBTCX) has performed rapid-response mapping for 10 hurricane and nor’easter events since Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Rapid-response data production workflows developed during the Superstorm Sandy mission have matured every year through the development and implementation of the JALBTCX Toolbox in response to requirements from engineers and scientists responsible for assessing storm impacts and making decisions related to recovery and restoration efforts. Today, the JALBTCX Toolbox is comprised of a series of modules that provide standard, streamlined, and repeatable workflows that guide users through the development of accurate datadriven information products on local, regional, and national scales. Rapid-response data products include shoreline and beach volume change in industry-standard, interoperable data formats and web services for consumption in GIS and web-based maps, dashboards, and applications. Post-response, the JALBTCX Toolbox includes modules for multi-dataset change detection analysis, the extraction of geomorphology features (e.g. dune crests and toes and sandbars), and the calculation of a Coastal Engineering Resilience Index (CERI). Future efforts will focus on further development of rapid response products in addition to the national coastal engineering resilience index that is routinely updated as new data becomes available.
The missing link in New Jersey’s Hurricane Sandy recovery: Land use management
Mark N. Mauriello
https://doi.org/10.34237/1009146
Hurricane Sandy devastated New Jersey with record storm surge, coastal erosion and inundation, widespread flooding, and associated property damage. The federal response to this catastrophic storm event was swift, with passage of a supplemental appropriation bill in excess of $60 billion to facilitate response and recovery. In New Jersey, hurricane recovery included a range of positive mitigation actions, including structural elevation of residential and smaller commercial buildings, property acquisitions, restoration of natural resources, enhanced construction standards, and large-scale beach nourishment. However, New Jersey’s recovery plan promoted quick rebuilding without consideration of long-term storm vulnerability concerns, and without fully understanding the cause of damages and appropriate land use management actions that could mitigate future storm and flood damages. There was a conspicuous absence of land use planning and management strategies in the context of future conditions of increasing sea level rise, chronic coastal erosion and increasing risk to people and property. This deficiency represents a significant gap in New Jersey’s Hurricane Sandy recovery and a missed opportunity to address a long-standing vulnerability.
Recovery of the NJ marine transportation system in the wake of Superstorm Sandy: A 10-year retrospective
W. Scott Douglas, Genevieve Clifton, Joselyn Wall, Kelly Rosofsky, and Christopher Mullan
https://doi.org/10.34237/1009147
The New Jersey Department of Transportation’s Office of Maritime Resources (NJDOT/ OMR) is responsible for operations and maintenance of more than 200 nautical miles (nmi) of shallow draft navigation channels in the Atlantic coastal region, as well as providing capacity for dredged material management to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to maintain the 117-mile New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway. When Superstorm Sandy made landfall in fall 2012, an estimated $65 million in damage was caused to state infrastructure in the form of severe shoaling, shoreline erosion, and berm loss on confined disposal facilities. In the decade since, the NJDOT/OMR has dredged 1.9 million CY of sediment and beneficially used over half of that in resiliency projects ranging from shoreline stabilization and marsh enhancement to restoration of shallow water habitat at a cost of over $120 million. Another 2.0 million CY of sediment has been dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the same timeframe, with 60% being used in resiliency projects. In addition to these projects, NJDOT also repaired and strengthened five confined disposal facilities, improved storm preparedness, and created a pathway toward a more sustainable maintenance program for New Jersey’s waterways. A summary of these projects is presented, along with lessons learned and considerations for dredging and beneficial-use practitioners.
Coastal Observations: Community organizing as critical component to planning for natural disasters: The New Jersey Organizing Project story
Amy Williams, Amanda Devecka-Rinear, Elissa Campanella, and Jody Stewart
https://doi.org/10.34237/1009148
For Superstorm Sandy, there was no guideline as to how to deal with insurance companies, starting to rebuild, or getting grants to move or stay. While many organizations are established to help with the immediate impacts of natural disasters, there is a gap in information on how to deal with the long-term effects of recovery and also how to prepare for future disasters. With these needs in mind, the New Jersey Organizing Project (NJOP) was initiated in 2014 to help build power within these affected communities to be able to participate in the decision-making process on aspects of the recovery program that ultimately affected their daily lives. NJOP is a grassroots, bipartisan, nonprofit organization that was founded on the premise that navigating myriad programs and complex rules of disaster recovery was exceedingly difficult for individuals. The organization facilitates communication and collaboration in order to build citizen capacity to coordinate a response to secure policy changes, to develop new programs, and advocate for improvements to existing ones in order to improve the recovery process. A key objective is to provide people with a space to receive dignity and respect by building power within the citizens and provide training to community members to participate in the decision-making processes that affect their daily lives. Over the past nine years, the organization has continued to respond to the current conditions in regards to health care, the opioid crisis, and resiliency planning for future storms in order to provide citizens a voice at the table in the decision-making process.