North Atlantic Division Restores Hurricane Sandy Damaged Beaches

On December 21 with the completion of a project in Westhampton New York the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers North Atlantic Division finished its last 25 emergency beach repair projects authorized after Hurricane Sandy.

The work was funded by the Corps’ Flood Control and Coastal Emergency (FC&CE) program and repaired and restored coastal storm risk management projects previously built by the Corps that were severely impacted by the storm.

The 25 projects and their 26 million cubic yards of sand made up the largest emergency repair and restoration effort in Corps history. Work started in February 2013. By April 2014 seventy-five percent of the work was complete.

The 25 FC&CE projects are a fraction of more than 150 division projects and studies authorized and funded after Hurricane Sandy which include the repair of Sandy-damaged navigation channels and structures the construction of 19 new coastal storm risk management projects and 17 flood and storm damage risk management studies along the Northeast coast.

The 25 projects were accomplished through a number of contracts executed by the Division’s New England New York Philadelphia Baltimore and Norfolk districts. Sand was obtained from a variety of sources including from navigation channels and offshore borrow areas.

Of the 26 million cubic yards of sand placed the vast majority (roughly 23 million cubic yards) was placed in New York and New Jersey.

In New York roughly 7 million cubic yards of sand was placed with about 3.4 million cubic yards placed along Rockaway Beach in Queens and more than 600000 cubic yards placed on Coney Island in Brooklyn.

In New Jersey about 16 million cubic yards was placed along the coast with about 8 million cubic yards placed from Sea Bright to Manasquan.

The entire effort totaled more than $455 million and was 100 percent federally funded.

In addition to future navigation channel and structure repair projects and coastal storm risk management construction projects and studies the division’s program also includes the submission in late January 2015 of a report that provides recommendations to address flood risk to vulnerable coastal populations. This report called the North Atlantic Coast Comprehensive Study is the result of two years of collaboration with key stakeholders including federal state regional and local governments as well as NGOs tribes and academia.