Report: Sandy was wake-up call we better heed

A new Army Corps of Engineers report warns that unless coastal residents and state and local leaders from the Carolinas to Maine rethink their approach to shoreline development, the next big storm will be equal to or worse than Hurricane Sandy – with its $65 billion in losses, 159 deaths and 650,000 homes damaged or destroyed.

The report, two years in the making, points to a future where storms are more devastating because of climate change and sea level rise and highlights the vulnerability of critical infrastructure like roads, bridges, power and water supplies and communication networks.

An aging, more vulnerable population along the coast makes evacuation more difficult.

Flood risk is already increasing, the Corps said in its key findings. Better land use planning is needed, especially in flood-prone areas. When developing in areas that frequently flood, owners should always occupy the highest ground rather than a spot closest to the water. And dunes made out of natural material are preferable to hard rock walls for protection from rising tides.

"The report provides a framework for communities that will arm them for the reality of future extreme weather," said Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works.

For Delaware, the report points to two high-risk areas: the shoreline of Delaware River and Bay and the resort areas on the Inland Bays.

It was the bay sides of Fenwick Island, South Bethany Beach, Bethany Beach and Dewey Beach that suffered the worst flood damage from Hurricane Sandy. Days after the storm, residents were still shoveling out mud, ripping out soggy drywall and discarding furniture and appliances that were ruined by flooding.

Even undeveloped areas suffered. At Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge, federal officials will spend an estimated $40 million to plug large areas where Delaware Bay surged into the adjacent marsh and cut new inlets. They will alter the marsh hydrology in an attempt to make the area more resilient in future storms.

And even though the storm made landfall near Atlantic City and spared Delaware far worse damage, lower Delaware had heavy rainfall and more than 45,000 customers statewide were without power.

"Hurricane Sandy brought to light the reality that coastal storms are intensifying and that sea level change and climate change will only heighten the vulnerability of coastal communities," said Brig. Gen. Kent D. Savre, commanding general of the corps North Atlantic Division.

The Corps' assessment included a range of future extreme water level forecasts, based on different assumptions about climate change and sea-level rise. Even the moderate increase assumptions gave rise to an expectation that, in a century, storms will push water at Lewes more than 1 foot higher at least once a year than was seen during the height of Hurricane Sandy, the second-highest level on record at the Lewes Breakwater Harbor tide gauge.

Worst-case sea level rise assumptions could annually push water along the Lewes shoreline more than five feet higher than was seen during Sandy, with storms seen about once a century driving water up 7.3 feet higher than Sandy's formidable mark.

Even moderate Corps estimates of sea levels in the coming century show annual storm tides at Lewes more than a foot higher than Sandy, with a 1-in-10 chance every year for a storm with tides topping out at 1.8-feet higher than Sandy.

Those same future high-water risks would occur all along Delaware Bay and Delaware River shorelines and well inland.

Jeffrey M. Bross, chairman of Delaware-based Duffield Associates, a regional engineering firm, said the Corps report was "fairly draconian" in its predictions. But the report is an important part of the public record that should drive meaningful discussion that leads toward solutions.

"I'm not sure I subscribe to the high sea level rise scenario, but in the work we do, we feel it's prudent to at least anticipate something in the low to moderate range," Bross said.

Bross said communities all along the coast already are struggling with the issue, including the City of New Castle, where discussions are under way on how far to go in dealing with gaps in dikes along the Delaware River.

"It's a subject for strong public debate. There are going to be opposing interests and there's got to be some reconciliation of those interests. This generation would be remiss if we did not begin planning for it, so we don't saddle the next generation with a bigger problem."

Maya van Rossum, who directs the regional Delaware Riverkeeper conservation group, said that risks to areas along the Delaware River and Bay became clear decades ago.

"The parade of horribles as to who's going to get hit – to me, that's confirmation of everything we've been hearing along the way," van Rossum said.

"The question is: What are they suggesting we do about it? That and making sure that they're not suggesting sea walls and infrastructure that are simply doing things that are going to make it worse for other people."

Preparations need to coincide with efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with rising global temperatures, climate change and sea level rise, van Rossum said.

"Part and parcel with that, we need to accept the reality that we have made some very poor choices about where and how we developed. It's time to pull back from the water's edge and move our families and communities up the hill, out of the flood plain, out of the flood zone so they can be permanently protected."

The Corps report acknowledged as much, saying that coastal communities "face tough choices as they adapt local land use patterns while striving to preserve community values and economic vitality."

"In some cases, this may mean that, just as ecosystems migrate and change functions, human systems may have to relocate in a responsible manner to sustain their economic viability and social resilience," the report said in a preface.

The report recommends communities identify their acceptable level of risk and plan for the long term.

Depending on the approach, costs are potentially huge.

Construction of storm surge barriers to protect flood-prone areas of the Christina River and Indian River Inlet, the Corps report estimated, would cost a combined $2.57 billion to construct, or an average annual cost of about $187 million. The barrier along the river would need to be about 1,250 feet long and 55 feet above the lowest water level, while the inlet height would have to be 800 feet long and more than 86 feet above the low water benchmark.

All along the cost, huge numbers of homes and public resources are at risk.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released a report showing that more than 25,500 people work in more than 1,440 establishments inside Delaware's current flood zones – areas of hazard that reflect already outdated storm surge estimates.

About $227.5 million in quarterly wages are at risk inside the areas statewide, with the largest share, more than 17,000 jobs and $132.8 million in quarterly wages, in Sussex County.

Hurricane Sandy proved both the risk and potential cost of coastal storms and extreme water levels along the Atlantic, the Corps pointed out, including to critical infrastructure like nuclear power plants.

Salem Unit 1 at the Salem/Hope Creek nuclear complex was one of eight reactors on the East Coast affected by the storm, with Salem offline for seven days afterward. Salem Unit 2 was offline for refueling at the time, but four of six circulating water pumps in its companion Unit 1 were unavailable as a result of the storm, and debris and waves clogged the operation's critical water intake screens.

A switching station at the plant, considered "non-vital," was lost because of water intrusion, and several buildings lost power, with telephones, the plant's intranet and a weather station also knocked offline.

The adjacent Delaware River rose to 99.5 feet, more than 10 feet above normal. It was just below ground level at the plant, although the Salem units were designed for flooding 20 feet above the plant's ground level, with critical operating intakes 6 feet to 14 feet above that.

In a briefing for Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials in early January 2014, a Salem operations director said the company revised hurricane preparation and response plans based on Sandy disruptions. The changes included a requirement to assess threats to cooling water systems based on tides, wind-speed and hazards from grassy debris in the river. A shutdown is required if a hurricane passes within 50 miles of the site.

"We probably should have started discussing this in a more-serious vein 10 years ago," Bross said. "Sandy has been a great catalyst because of all the devastation. It was a wake-up call, and we really need to begin moving forward with plans to deal with it."

State environmental chief David Small said neither he nor his staff have reviewed the lengthy corps report, released Wednesday, but he believes it will be an important tool for providing a blueprint for future decisions, reducing future risk, and setting up a network where state, federal and local officials can better manage assets, such as funding across agencies to get better results.

And, Small said, it will further the discussion that has already started in Delaware about the impacts both of climate change and sea-level rise.

"There's a lot to talk about," he said.

State officials recognized that fact when they put together a sea-level rise assessment and began to look at costs and benefits of beach renourishment along the Delaware Bay shore, he said. In that discussion, the controversial topic of retreat – where homeowners are bought out now to avoid future risk and expensive infrastructure repair – was suggested though never acted upon.

"We know these are really tough questions" but many of them get set aside in people's minds "until the next big event," Small said.

Even along the ocean coast, where beach renourishment is considered the key tool in sea-level rise and storm mitigation, the future isn't clear, he said.

There is a cost-share program in place with the state picking up the total local share, Small said. And right now there are available sand resources. But that might change in the future.

"We've got to look more forward," he said. "Where do we need to be making these investments? Where do we need to stop making investments?"

There is also the issue of the legacy pollution and chemical and petroleum complex along the Delaware River north of the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.

During Sandy, a 2,000 foot-long dike along the Delaware River was in danger of breaching, with the potential breakthrough of waves from the Delaware River threatening to wash across some of the state's most-toxic federal Superfund cleanup sites, spreading dangerous pollution. At one point, state workers resorted to emergency use of huge sandbags as storms broke across the area to prevent a disaster.

State lawmakers quickly approved $7.5 million for repairs and improvements to the Red Lion barrier, as well as to other aging dikes, some dating back hundreds of years, in and near New Castle.

Delaware's sea-level issues go beyond the coastal areas that the corps report addresses, Small said. There are also concerns about municipalities like Laurel and Seaford, where flooding has already been a significant problem during heavy, non-hurricane-related, rains.

The corps assessment takes a close look at some of the vulnerabilities along the Delaware River and Bay and Rehoboth, Indian River and Little Assawoman bays.

But Amy Guise, chief of the command center for the North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study, said while the report gives suggestions they are designed to be broad.

Guise said every community has to deal with future flood risk based on the local issues and what they can afford to do.

Less daunting in terms of cost for Delaware Bay communities: options like early flood warnings and natural storm protection such as widened beaches, more robust dunes and natural or living shorelines.

Already, Chris Bason, executive director of the Center for the Inland Bays, is thinking toward the future.

"It's on my to-do list to find a new location for the center," he said.

The center is near the Indian River Inlet Coast Guard Station and overlooks both the inlet and Indian River Bay.

Bason said when he's out driving around the inland bays, he's never far from the flood potential.

"I think about how many bridges we're going to need."

He points to the near-flooding last week during the "no-storm" and a minor nor'easter last fall that caused high water from Rehoboth Bay to flood the adjacent marsh and inundate Del. 1.

"What's that going to look like when we have another 6 inches of sea-level rise," he said. And, he said, people need to start talking and planning now because of "the colossal magnitude of societal costs."

Among the things that would help, he said: state legislation to protect freshwater wetlands or getting Congress to set aside more money so the corps has a larger staff and resources to monitor and protect low-lying fresh wetland areas. These places are important both to reduce flooding on adjacent land and to protect the groundwater supplies, Bason said.

Setbacks from flood plans would be another positive step, he said.

"The benefit of that is you keep people out of harm's way and you keep the infrastructure out of harm's way, he said. And, as sea level does rise, it provides a buffer so beaches and wetlands can migrate, he said.

Last, he said, it is important to manage salt marshes. By some estimates, they are among the largest inland bay asset to suffer in sea-level rise scenarios. Of the 10,000 acres of salt marsh in the bay watersheds, as much as 90 percent could be inundated by the end of the century as sea level rises, Bason said.

Along the Delaware River and Bay, Jennifer Adkins, executive director for the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, said pilot projects like a living shoreline that incorporates an oyster reef at Mispillion Harbor, is working to both stabilize an eroding shoreline and provide ecological benefits.

"It's one application that works under certain conditions," she said.

In storms they can buffer the impact from waves, and in really big storms, though they might be completely covered with water, they typically rebound, Adkins said.

In Philadelphia, municipal officials are working on green infrastructure projects to capture more of the rain before it goes into the wastewater treatment system, she said. Too much rain can send wastewater spilling into the Delaware River.

"Estuaries are on the front lines," Adkins said. "It's not just about the water getting higher. It's the impact of higher water with storms on top of them."

Contact Jeff Montgomery at (302) 463-3344 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com or Molly Murray at (302) 463-3334 or mmurray@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @MollyMurraytnj.