In this second series of blogs about living on an island, like I do on the Outer Banks of North Carolina in Emerald Isle, NC is all about living with the ocean. And living with the ocean is all about mitigation techniques that have been employed on the barrier islands along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts to keep the ocean and sounds at bay. One of the firist mitigation techniques employed was the jetty.
Some of this information about the history of jetties has been gleaned by observing what Dr. Orrin Pilkey calls the “Victims of History.” One such victim is Cape May, New Jersey, America’s oldest seaside resort. In 1801, an advertisement appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper publicizing the benefits of visiting the coast:
The subscriber has prepared himself for entertaining company who uses sea bathing and he is accommodated with extensive house room with fish, oysters, crabs, and good liquors. Care will be taken of gentlemen’s horses. Carriages may be driven along the margin of the ocean for miles and the wheels will scarcely make an impression upon the sand. The slope of the shore is so regular that persons may wade a great distance. It is the most delightful spot that citizens can go in the hot season.
Vacationers from Philadelphia began visiting the hamlet and by the mid-19th century, it was certainly the country’s most prestigious beach resort. Christened the “Summer White House” by President Benjamin Harrison, six Presidents vacationed at Cape May. The resort’s prestige was eclipsed in the 20th Century by a newer seaside queen, Atlantic City. Today, Cape May is no longer found on anyone’s list of great beach resorts. The problem is not that the resort is too old-fashioned, but that too little beach remains on the cape.
Beach preservation is a perennial challenge for coastal communities, and Cape May is no exception, especially after man attempted to out engineer the forces of nature. What was a small harbor that opened into the Atlantic Ocean north of Cape May was artificially enlarged in the early 1900’s by scooping out massive amounts of sand and muck. In a few years, a pair of parallel, and massive, stone jetties (examples of hard engineering) were deemed necessary to keep great volumes of migrating sand from closing the harbor. These jetties have been extended over the years and, today, these twin jetties extend nearly a mile into the ocean! They’re so long that it takes about 20 minutes to pick your way along the rocks before reaching the end.
These jetties did indeed “mitigate” the natural tendency for southward drifting sand to close the artificially enlarged harbor. However, these jetties, like all jetties, share the same inevitable outcome: trapping sediment and sand on the one side and intensifying erosion on the other. In this case, the jetties ultimately accelerated the loss of beaches, further south, in Cape May. With sand no longer being deposited naturally on the beaches south of the jetties, there was little space for sunbathers. On the flip side, these jetties which robbed Cape May of its sand are the same jetties that made the beaches of the Wildwoods, towns upside of the jetties, so wide.
In the next number of blogs, I will continue to examine how mitigation techniques have been employed on the barrier islands along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts. That being said, to learn more about life in Emerald Isle, NC, go to my website, www.EIHomesforSale.com and request my free Guide to Living Were You Vacation or text your email address to: 919-308-2292.
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