Pounding waves and relentless wind over the past few days has battered parts of Delaware’s famous coastline – primarily near its southernmost point.
Tony Pratt, shoreline and waterway administrator for DNREC, says fences along the toe of the dunes are lost, with much of the heavy damage south of the Indian River Inlet.
“In Dewey Beach, water rolled up the face of the dune and rolled back down it. It didn’t really erode the dune, so we go from basically zero dune erosion there to Bethany Beach, which may be about the worst and maybe we’ve lost as much as 20, 25 feet of dune,” Pratt said.
He says his team hasn’t gathered much data yet on how the nor’easter or Hurricane Joaquin affected Delaware Bay communities.
He also notes high water still masks how much it will cost to replenish the dunes in the coming months.
“The weather we’ve had is not directly related to the hurricane, but we do have a hurricane that’s churning itself out near Bermuda and that will throw waves to our coastline," said Pratt. "It’s like the wake of a boat. It’s generating waves that are heading our way and will be compounding the problems we’ve got.”
Gov. Jack Markell lifted a limited State of Emergency declaration for Sussex County Monday afternoon. It had been in place since Friday.
As of Monday afternoon, both sides of Route 1 from Dewey to Bethany Beach are open after being closed off-and-on over the weekend, but a number of roads in all three counties are still inundated with water and remain closed. Others are open, but have water on them - prompting DelDOT to warn drivers to use them with caution.