NCCF: Northeast Coastal Advocacy

When the town of Nags Head started its beach re-nourishment project early this summer, many Outer Banks locals were shocked—not by the barges or pipes or plumes of liquefied sediment pouring ashore, but by the quality of the sand. It was gorgeous. It looked like it belonged there.

post-irene-beach

The ocean once rushed under this listing house in South Nags Head. After the

sand pumping project, it now has some beach in front of it.

As contractors finished the first sections, locals were again taken aback, this time by the width of the new beach. Getting to the surf required an extended hike toting chairs, umbrellas, towels, and coolers across seemingly endless yards of hot sand.

Long-time beach lover Jeff DeBlieu, who happens to be my husband, saw a business opportunity in the vast stretches of fresh sand. He told friends he was going to buy several camels and set up a concession ferrying tourists and their gear from the dunes to the sea. He’d name it Omar’s Sand Safaris and hire young camel handlers with foreign accents—it didn’t matter what kind of accent, as long as they sounded exotic. “In the evenings I’ll offer longer camel excursions,” he joked. If necessary, the town would get a cut of his profits.

The day before Irene’s arrival, Jeff visited his favorite beach a bit south of Whalebone Junction and paced off the distance between the dunes and mean high tide. He counted 120 paces—about 290 feet. When he and I returned to that same beach the day after the hurricane, we climbed the walkway over the dunes and gasped in disbelief.

The daunting expanse was gone. In its place was a moderately wide, very natural-looking beach. An appealing beach. But a beach you could walk across without longing for a lift from a camel. Jeff counted a mere 60 paces between the dunes and the mean high tide.

Nags Head hasn’t lost half its nourishment sand. Not by any means. An initial assessment by Coastal Science & Engineering, the contractor in charge, estimated that a bit under a million cubic yards of sand had been washed off the dry beach, out of a total of about 4 million cubic yards placed above the water level before the storm.

A good portion of the “lost” sand is likely just offshore, waiting to be washed back in by the continual dance between beach and bar. So it’s not really gone. Some reshaping of the beach was built into the construction design. But it wasn’t supposed happen this fast.

Coastal geologists say the biggest factors determining success of nourishment projects are 1) whether the fill sand is compatible with what’s naturally on the beach (if the grains aren’t the same size and shape, the sand will get washed out more quickly); and 2) the amount of local wave energy. The town seems to have found a winner in sand. The second question is a lot stickier. After all, Nags Head sits on a hurricane-shaped strand in the middle of the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

The $36 million or so the town will spend on this first flush of nourishment is an expensive way to try to halt barrier island migration. But it’s far more natural, and preferable, than putting groins or other hard structures on the beach.

Initially the town hoped that FEMA might reimburse it for the pumped-but-now- underwater sand. But Tim Kana, CS&E president, told town commissioners that not enough sand had been swept out to depths of 19 feet, the point at which FEMA considers it gone from the system.

That’s good news on two counts. Irene didn’t assault the oceanfront. Her fury swept in from the sound side. If Nags Head’s nourishment project had suffered severe damage from Irene, we could have expected total devastation from a tropical storm that passed offshore or a run-of-the-mill northeaster.

Also, the swash zone can’t withstand frequent infusions of sand. Nourishing any more frequently than three years will kill most of the mole crabs, coquinas and other critters that help make the Outer Banks a fishing mecca. From a biological point of view, the already-nourished beaches really don’t need FEMA coming to the rescue right now.

Irene was not the end of the story. A week and a half later Hurricane Katia passed offshore, sending more sand-chomping waves to the Nags Head shore. Afterwards DeBlieu paced off a mere 35 steps between the dunes and the high tide line at his favorite beach. But just offshore lay a beautiful sand ledge, a waist-deep slough that is sure to draw red drum and maybe speckled trout and a bar that shaped perfect body surfing waves.

Time and wave energy will tell whether the town has invested wisely. Not surprisingly, lots of folks are closely watching the beaches. The chatter between the two sides, pro and con nourishment, sounds very much like the kind of ugly sparring you hear between the die-hard fans of rival sports teams.

Meanwhile, my dear husband spends his evenings dreaming of camels, and wondering if FEMA might reimburse him for the potential income he lost when Omar’s Sand Safaris was washed out to (the shallower than 19 feet) sea.

Jan is a longtime resident of the Outer Banks and the author of several books. She manages our regional office in Manteo and is our coastal advocate along the northeast coast.

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