NORTH WILDWOOD – Beach replenishment efforts suffered a major blow Mother’s Day weekend.
A storm that hit unseasonably late in the offseason undid months of the city’s work as part of its annual back passing effort, where the city pays out of its budget to harvest and truck sand north from Wildwood to fill the North Wildwood beaches.
City Administrator Ron Simone estimated May 9 that the storm cost the city 25% of the sand it had stockpiled in mountains on the back beach and most of the sand it had placed between Third and Seventh avenues.
Mayor Patrick Rosenello told the Herald the timing of the storm was unfortunate, and damage was still being done as he spoke.
“The ocean is still very angry,” he said around the afternoon high tide May 9. “There is a critical mass of quantity of sand that you need to move within a certain time to establish a beach that will last. It’s virtually impossible to move that critical quantity with trucks. We have conveyed that to the Army Corps and state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). I am confident they are going to take our experience into consideration when they are doing their project.”
Simone said the only saving grace was that the storm didn’t coincide with the full moon high tide that will come this weekend.
Rosenello said that although sand was lost, he anticipates they will be able to spread the damage out and not have to close any beaches they had planned to open for summer.
