01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, September 1, 2011
Maureen McInerney and son Aidan, 8, walk along Green Hill Beach in South Kingstown, where Tropical Storm Irene has eroded more than seven feet of the bank behind the beach.
The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer
At Charlestown Breachway on Wednesday morning, a car full of visitors got stuck in sand that Tropical Storm Irene scooped up and dumped in the state beach parking lot.
In Matunuck, the owner of Tara's Joyce Family Pub stood on her raised oceanfront deck, lamenting the loss of a wooden bench below and telling visitors that a staircase down to the beach was not safe to use.
Meanwhile, mile after mile of the state's southern beaches were littered with rocks and pebbles left behind by the large powerful waves that rode atop Irene's 3-foot storm surge.
Still, property owners, state beach officials and coastal geologists breathed a collective sigh of relief three days after Rhode Island had braced for the worst. Irene, while taking a vigorous chomp out of beaches from Matunuck to Misquamicut, spared the coastline her full bite.
"It's probably the worst we've seen in 10 years," said Robert Paquette, chief of the state Division of Parks and Recreation.
At Charlestown Breachway, he pointed to dune fencing destroyed and bent over by Irene's fury and to the steeper than usual grade of the beach. Nevertheless, all of the state beaches were able to reopen two days after the storm.
"The sand is actually coming back," Paquette said. "Mother Nature will take care of it."
Jon Boothroyd, an emeritus professor of geosciences at the University of Rhode Island and state geologist, had a more tempered view — both of Irene's relative strength and of Mother Nature's helping hand. On Tuesday, under blues skies, he gazed out at the tranquil surf of several South County beaches, part of a shoreline he has studied, examined and measured for close to 35 years.
"This wasn't as bad as it could have been," said Boothroyd.
In terms of coastal erosion, he said, the storm was comparable to some of the worst northeasters of the past several years, including one in April 2007, but not nearly as damaging as Hurricane Bob in 1991. It stripped about four feet of sand from what he calls the berm, the area where beachgoers typically spread out their blankets.
On the raised pavilion at Matunuck Town Beach, he and doctoral student Bryan Oakley, pointed to a layer of darker sand that was exposed when the storm surge washed away a surface layer of lighter hued and less dense sand. It ran westward like a stripe all the way to the Charlestown Breachway and beyond. Only two days earlier, when Oakley had been out taking the usual measurements of the beach's profile, the area of dark sand was much broader, he said. Since then, the tides have re-deposited the cherished lighter sand on the beach that Irene had scoured away.
"That light-colored sand is what came back over the last two days," said Boothroyd.
It's a natural process, one alluded to by Paquette. Big storms lash the coast and erode the beaches. In between the storms, the tides pile sand back onto the beach.
Unfortunately, said Boothroyd, the sea level has been rising. As a result, since measurements were first taken at the South County beaches in 1939, "it's lost over 100 feet," Boothroyd said. So over time, Mother Nature hasn't been as helpful as hurtful.
The barrier beaches, said Oakley, "want to go upward and landward." In other words, the water's edge is creeping inland and, during storms, sand relentlessly continues its migration farther ashore.
"It just becomes a problem when you want to draw a line in the sand," said Oakley, referring to houses and roads.
That battle line is clearly drawn at Browning's Beach, near Card Ponds. There, Clive DuVal stepped outside of his family's beachfront house and climbed atop the fortification they have constructed to prevent the house from being washed away. It's made of immense dark coconut fiber sacks filled with sand. Before Irene, they were largely hidden from view by a layer of sand. On Wednesday, they were almost completely exposed, resembling a beached whale.
Still, said DuVal, "We didn't lose much at all," at least nothing compared with the large swath of beach that used to separate the house from the water and is now perpetually under water. He just hopes that the beach can restore itself before the next big storm comes through.
At Tara's Joyce Family Pub — another line drawn in the sand –– the damage of previous storms is still evident, including the remnants of a lower deck she has yet to get approval to rebuild. But Tara Mulroy said she was relieved that the rest of the establishment's deck was spared a big hit this time around.
"We were expecting so much worse," Mulroy said.
01 Sep, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGKq4RW67UnkT2KY3vaxrGmEvlp4g&url=http://www.projo.com/news/environment/content/IRENE_EROSION_1_09-01-11_RDQ2SF5_v19.68d17.html
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