Jersey Shore beaches, dunes eaten up by Ophelia's impact
SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. (CBS) -- Traffic is flowing once again at 42nd Street and Central Avenue in Sea Isle City.
On Saturday, the intersection was inundated with knee-deep water, but by Sunday, the flood waters had receded.
"I told my kids, I gotta get a kayak or a boat to get out of here," Scott Clifford joked.
Clifford said his house unexpectedly became a waterfront property.
"Usually you get flooding. It will come up to the curb, but yesterday I guess it came up to my second step. So that was the highest, the highest I've seen it since I've been here," he said.
From high floodwaters to high surfs Ophelia churned up the ocean, and waves pounded the shoreline.
Now that the storm has died down, you can see how much of a beating the dunes took.
People walking along couldn't help but notice the beach is a lot shorter.
"This summer, we probably had 200 yards of beach. And now we have 10 yards maybe, and yesterday you can see where it came all the way up to the dunes. So no beach yesterday and maybe five or 10 yards today, so the beach is gone," Angelo Camano said.
Another part of the beach that's damaged is this dune path. It's blocked off with yellow tape so people don't walk down and fall off this steep drop-off.
"They say that the sand gets taken away by the ocean, but it also gets brought back by the ocean. I never seen it get brought back by the ocean," Joe Sweeney said.
Further south along the Jersey Shore, Ophelia also took a bite out of the beach in Wildwood.
But beach patrol captain Ed Schneider said the beach has enough sand to survive the winter.
"Wildwood, we lose, we lose a little bit with the storms. But we are much larger. We're about 350 yards from boardwalk to the water," he said. "So there's plenty of places for people to set up shop in the summer seasons."
Back in Sea Isle, officials are still assessing the extent of the damage.
A city spokesperson said the Army Corps of Engineers is planning to hire a contractor to bring in fresh sand and that the beach should be back to normal by spring.
