THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 19, 1994 TAG: 9411190465
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE MATHER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Friday's ravenous surf flattened dozens of private Sandbridge sea walls, exposing the oceanfront homeowners to both the advancing Atlantic and still more criticism from outspoken beach conservationists.
All along Sandfiddler Road the churning ocean breached wooden and steel sea walls, stripping away sand and damaging several homes.
At least two luxury homes late Friday teetered on weakened pilings over the lapping surf.
For vocal seawall critics, the message was: I told you so.
``I, for one, am glad to see them destroyed,'' David Bush, a research assistant in the geology department at Duke University, said in a telephone interview. ``It is just foolish to try to hold back land in the Sandbridge area, of all places.''
Bush and others have strongly opposed intervention - especially ``hard'' intervention like bulkhead construction - to repel the advancing Atlantic.
North Carolina, apparently heeding the advice of beach researchers, banned sea walls in 1985. But at about the same time, the Virginia General Assembly began allowing oceanfront homeowners to build protective barriers. The metal sea walls in Sandbridge - some once standing 10 feet tall - prompted detractors to dub the area ``Steelbridge.''
Bush said the sea walls weren't built to withstand ocean forces and that's why they are crumbling. Bush said that when a sea wall is breached, tons of water can collect behind it. The water tries to recede to the ocean and creates tremendous pressure against the inside of the wall.
The push and pull eventually knocks down the barrier.
Most of those sea walls were reduced to steel scrap and loose timber as the far-reaching effects of Hurricane Gordon, more than 100 miles southeast of North Carolina's Outer Banks, carved into fragile Sandbridge. Wooden pilings the size of utility poles were sucked into the surf and then were thrust like battering rams into bulkheads.
Some of the floating timbers came from a pile of construction material left Thursday night near the home of Ed Jones in the 3300 block of Sandfiddler Road. By Friday morning, the swelling surf dragged the huge wooden poles and heavy steel sheets into the ocean. A contractor was supposed to use the material to finish Jones' sea wall, the homeowner said.
Ocean water rushed through the sea wall's unfinished portion and knocked down the wooden barrier.
``He's got $30,000 of my money,'' said Jones of the sea wall contractor. ``And look what I got. Nothing. None of this would have happened if he had finished my bulkhead.''
By noon Friday, the Atlantic had overrun Jones' home. The decks had collapsed, the support pilings had weakened, and the basement's cement floor had fallen away and crumbled like a cracker.
Jones, a 53-year-old farm-building contractor from Farmville, didn't expect his 2-year-old home to survive the night.
``If it does, it will fool the hell out of me,'' he said.
There won't be a practical way to protect the exposed Sandbridge homes from the usually powerful winter storms that rake the area after the Dec. 1 conclusion of the hurricane season. A sand replenishment proposal has been buried in political turmoil, and it is unlikely the sea walls can be repaired soon.
``What will happen is, with the walls gone and no dune, the homes will be exposed to any and all winter storms this season,'' Bush said. ``And the winter storm season hasn't even begun. A lot of those homes will be destroyed.'' MEMO: Related stories on pages A8 and A9.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH, Staff
The bulkhead in Sandbridge, near the 2900 block of Sandfiddler Road,
buckles in the surf. The water breached the bulkhead in some spots
Friday, threatening several homes with collapse.
Color graphic by John Earle, Staff
How a Sea Wall Fails
Photo by DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH, Staff
By noon Friday, the Atlantic had overrun the vacation home of Ed
Jones in the 3300 block of Sandfiddler Road, Virginia Beach. He
didn't expect his 2-year-old home to survive the night.
KEYWORDS: HURRICANE GORDON WEATHER STORM SANDBRIDGE
EROSION SEA WALL DAMAGE by CNB