Here’s why they’re fixing storm damage on the beach during hurricane season

Hurricane Irma knocked down sand dunes along the southern Grand Strand before workers could even finish rebuilding the fragile structures that had been decimated by numerous tropical storms and hurricanes over the past two years.

But even though the dunes raised by the Army Corps of Engineers were flattened in Irma’s surge, the sand berms served their purpose and blocked the shoreline from severe flooding, officials say.

“The people and property behind the dunes were protected from major damage,” said Wes Wilson, project manager.

This summer’s beach renourishment work to patch up the dunes has irritated tourists because of the construction noise, all night lighting, and the sight of the project creeping past their condominiums as new sand was piped upon the shoreline.

Even the locals are losing patience and questioning why the $26.3 million project is being done in the middle of hurricane season, especially after Surfside Beach officials revealed this week that Hurricane Irma swept away 57 percent of the sand the corps had just replaced.

Sean McBride, spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, says the hopper dredges needed to pump sand from the ocean floor onto the beach are only available from May through October -- hurricane season.

The hoppers are needed in the harbors for dredging the rest of the year, when environmental restrictions allow that work to be conducted.

Now the resanding project has relocated to North Myrtle Beach where preliminary tests were conducted Friday.

The resanding is set to begin Oct. 2, coinciding with the October anniversaries of Hurricane Matthew last year and the record rainstorm of 2015.

“It is what it is,” Pat Dowling, spokesman for North Myrtle Beach said of the timing.

Work in North Myrtle Beach already faces a possible delay because of a tropical system forming in the Atlantic. The National Hurricane Center says it has a medium chance of developing into a stronger storm that would bring high waves and wicked winds, thus stalling the operation.

Asked whether they are concerned that North Myrtle Beach faces the same fate as the south end, Dowling said those dunes that were washed away by Irma served their purpose.

“This is strictly shore protection, and we’re in need of it,” Dowling said.

“It’s an unusual season for the entire South Carolina coast, if you look at it in terms of beach erosion,” Dowling said. “We had a few years, there was nothing much happening to anybody at all.”

Then came Tropical Storm Ana in 2015. She made history as being the earliest tropical storm in the hurricane season to ever make landfall, and took out a sizable chunk of North Myrtle Beach’s dune line with her.

Ana was followed by Hurricane Joaquin in the fall, and the 100-year record rainstorm in October. Another tropical system slammed the area on Memorial Day weekend last year, followed by Hurricane Matthew in October.

The scars from storm erosion pockmarked the entire Grand Strand.

Just by itself, Matthew was not a devastating storm, Dowling said. It’s the culmination of all those storms that eventually washed away many high tide beaches across the Grand Strand and chomped at the dune system.

The focus of the North Myrtle Beach project is not to replenish the high tide sandy beaches, but for the corps to deposit 400,000 square feet of sand from offshore for the city to build new dunes.

“The sole purpose of the project is to protect structures from storm surge and excessive high tides,” Dowling said.

The sanding will be completed by early November, and then dune construction begins, Dowling said.

So what happens if the new sand is washed away in North Myrtle Beach like it was after the corps completed much of its work on the south end?

The corps will survey the beach before work begins, so they can assess any damage that a storm in the next few weeks of hurricane season might cause, McBride said. Just like they did with the south end.

“There is always the risk of storms relocating or washing away sand from the beach,” McBride said. “But, it is hard to speculate on what effect any specific storm would have on the project.”

“Beaches that have been nourished fare far better after a hurricane than beaches that have not,” McBride said.

Surfside Beach and Garden City have already started the paperwork to get new sand for what Irma washed away on the south end, said Justin Powell, assistant administrator for Horry County.

Officials are hoping that resanding can begin next summer when beach renourishment is scheduled for Myrtle Beach. It all depends on whether beach funding is included in the emergency disaster aid provided by Congress for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

“This is something we are already putting on the radar of our congressional delegation in Washington,” Powell said.

This story was originally published September 29, 2017 at 4:53 PM with the headline "Here’s why they’re fixing storm damage on the beach during hurricane season."