2012 Annual Report - To the City of North Wildwood on the condition of the city beaches

This past year was dominated by relatively calm weather and seas from December through most of October 2012. Conditions deteriorated rapidly with the approach of Hurricane Sandy and its eventual landfall near Atlantic City, New Jersey about 8 p.m. ET on October 29, 2012. "Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy”, still packed hurricane-force winds as it moved onshore but had lost the characteristics of a tropical storm about an hour before land fall. Sandy was the second named storm to have struck New Jersey in less than two years following Irene which made landfall in August 2011. Sandy's strength, angle of approach and arrival during full moon high tides combined to produce a record storm surge of water into New York City and along the northern New Jersey shoreline. North Wildwood located to the south of the eye putting it on the weaker storm quadrant avoided the full wrath of Sandy’s strongest winds that topped 90 mph and storm surge, sparing the community from potentially facing similar devastation of property seen in Ocean and Monmouth Counties. The city also benefited significantly from recent storm preparedness actions taken to bolster the width of the beach and develop a continuous dune system along the oceanfront beaches. As a result Sandy’s storm surge and waves caused only modest property and infrastructure damage along the North Wildwood oceanfront compared to the devastation other New Jersey communities suffered. The engineered beach performed as designed absorbing the storm wave energy and surge as it eroded but provided storm protection for oceanfront property and infrastructure and prevented extensive damages. The North Wildwood (City) municipal shoreline was surveyed by the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey Coastal Research Center (CRC) to document changes in shoreline position and sand volume over the past year. This annual report presents a discussion of shoreline changes and engineered beach performance including the sand back passing project and impacts of Sandy observed by the CRC in 2012