Winter Storm Pummels Southern Ocean City Beaches
By Oren Liebermann
OCEAN CITY, NJ (CBS) -- On the southern shores of Ocean City, living on the beach means living on the edge.
"It gets worse every time," says Rusty Shay, who visits the resort town every month in the offseason. "After Sandy it was bad, and this isn't good."
The overnight storm hammered the sand berm put in place the last few days to protect the homes. Through the wind and rain, the berm held.
"We were able to keep the ocean out of the streets and off the properties," says Frank Donato, Ocean City's Emergency Management Coordinator.
Donato says Ocean City got lucky this time. He says the worst of the storm missed the worst of the tides.
"The storm seems to have sped up overnight and made its way off the coast prior to the overnight high tide, and the winds really seemed to die down overnight."
High tides Wednesday and Thursday flooded some of the low-lying streets like 31st Street, forcing the city to close the road. This sort of tidal flooding is expected. It is the ocean that has to be held back, and there is not much beach left in southern Ocean City to do that.
"They had brought a lot of sand up before the storm," says Marsha Walter who is visiting Ocean City. "They were working really hard to replenish that, but it looked like it took its toll."
The northern end of Ocean City is in the middle of a months-long beach replenishment project. On the southern end, it is a different story. The sand berm will have to outlast the winter storms until summer arrives.
