Nor’easter scoured Jersey and Delaware beaches, causing erosion and flooding

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State and federal officials are assessing damage to the New Jersey and Delaware coastlines after this weekend’s nor-easter scoured the beaches, causing flooding and erosion.

Along the Atlantic City boardwalk, beachgoers strolled and ate lunch on Monday, taking photos where the storm swept away new sand that had reinforced the beach last year, leaving 8–10 feet cliffs between the boardwalk and the beach.

New Brunswick resident Alfred Tumolo is a regular visitor to Atlantic City who said he watched this winter as workers replenished the beach with sand dredged from 2–3 miles out in the ocean.

“I watched the dozers all winter here,” Tumolo said. “You see them digging the sand out there, pumping the sand back to the beach, and they separate the junk out of it, and it’s clean sand again. And then it happens again, the same erosion, just can’t stop it.”

Steve Downey, chief of the Atlantic City Beach Patrol, said the storm destroyed much of the beach that had been replenished last year, at a cost of about $40 million.

“It’s washed away all, if not pretty much all, of the new sand that they put in between the piers,” Downey said. “Pennsylvania Avenue, North Carolina Avenue, a lot of erosion there as well, it’s not anything we haven’t seen in the past, so it’s kind of to be expected.”

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said in addition to the 2025 work in Atlantic City, it had completed beach-nourishment projects earlier this year in Sea Isle City, Strathmere and northern Ocean City, which cost $41.1 million. Work in Avalon had just begun before the storm hit.

“There was significant erosion to some of the projects completed earlier this year,” said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson Steve Rochette.

Rochette said the Corps also has projects in Delaware’s Fenwick Island, as well as Rehoboth, Dewey and Bethany beaches. He said the dune and beaches are fortified to take the brunt of the coastal storms in order to protect homes and businesses.

“The dunes and beaches are sacrificial in nature,” Rochette said. “We understand that there is going to be erosion with some of these projects. There is the initial construction and then periodic nourishment.”

Flooding in the back bay

Rochette said the beaches get damaged by waves, while the back bays present a different challenge.

“It’s unique, it’s more tied towards water pouring in through coastal inlets, storm surges as we know it, and then raising the water levels in the bay, which can flood infrastructure along those areas,” Rochette said.

On Monday, residents and workers were cleaning up Atlantic City’s Ducktown neighborhood, where some streets flooded along an inlet in the back bay.

At Moments at Scannicchio’s, an Italian restaurant, employees and a cleaning crew wiped down tables and chairs and hosed muddy water off the kitchen floor.

Employee Frankie Cruz Alejandro said the water crept past flood barriers on the doors and covered the dining room floors about 2 feet high.

He said they learned their lesson during a flood last year — and raised refrigerators off the ground to keep them safe.

“We try to get used to it, but Mother Nature is a mother,” Alejandro said.

A 2019 study by the Army Corps and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection found that towns along the back bays risk $1.5 billion in damage each year if nothing is done to protect them. Rochette said there have not been any major projects in the back bays.

Rochette said it could be at least a week before its erosion assessment is complete.