The beaches along the Delaware coast have faced a significant amount of erosion resulting from the major storms over the last couple of years, according to USA Today.
"I watched entire dunes gone in one wave," Anthony P. Pratt, the state shoreline and waterway administrator, said. "I never would have guessed that one wave or two waves could have done that.
"It would be like pouring water on a pile of sugar," he continued.
A U.S. Geological Survey report that was recently released shows the protective dunes along the mid-Atlantic coast, including Delaware, are vulnerable to erosion in a Category one hurricane. The dunes are, however, large enough to withstand a direct hit without exposing the land behind them to flooding.
The data used for the report was collected before Hurricane Sandy hit last year, which harmed beaches all along the east coast. This calls into question some of the reports survey, which goes kilometer-by-kilometer, opening the information to wide variations.
Prior to Hurricane Sandy, Delaware appeared to be in a position to lose much of any beach in a big storm, but less likely to see flooding inland. Now, however, some communities in the state are exposed during the current "extremely active" hurricane season.
The Army Corps of Engineers is trying to decide where to place 26 million cubic yards of sand to repair the coastal defenses along the eastern seaboard, of which two million cubic yards are located in Delaware.
Federal weather experts have predicted 13 to 20 named tropical storms this year, with up to 11 becoming hurricanes and as many as six reaching up to major storm status that contain winds that could reach 111 mph or more.
"Where there is a low spot, there can be flooding behind the dune and interaction with other areas down the beach that maybe weren't as vulnerable to begin with," Hilary Stockdon, the lead researcher in the effort to examine hurricane risk along the east coast, said.
Jeffrey Gebert, the coastal planning chief for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Philadelphia District, was part of a group to develop new requirements, and said that Sandy had strikingly different effects on areas with and without dunes.
"It goes to show you that it really does work," Gebert said. "There certainly isn't any information from Sandy, not in Delaware and not in New Jersey, that would suggest any reason to alter the course."
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