After the Storm

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, USA

The signs of the Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, boardwalk show distantly above what remains of the carefully maintained dunes, washed out by a nor'easter spawned by the remnants of Hurricane Ida in November 2009.
“Dune Gone”

I don’t usually post photos relating to current events, but Nancy’s post on her “Shore Dive Life” blog yesterday calls out for a photo perspective. This weekend we visited Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, arriving just as a large “nor’easter” was clearing out Friday night. The storm had been spawned by the remains of Hurricane Ida, which had moved up the coast, merged with another low pressure cell, and then stalled over the mid-Atlantic coast, hammering the beach towns of Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware. Nancy’s post talks about the risk, damage, and drama of a major storm — especially to people who are dependent for their future on real property in a beach town. For my part, I would just like to add that neither our place nor the businesses in the beach resort towns in the area seem to have suffered significant damage. Everything is fine and I am sure any visitor would find their favorite resorts a bit battered but basically unaffected. The beach remains; the stores, bars, and restaurants are open; and the fun still flows freely according to your tastes.

We found Rehoboth to be pretty unaffected — wet, gray, and dreary, but basically open and normal. We walked to the beach to find out what the fuss was about. Much of the boardwalk was closed, so we had to walk a few blocks to get onto the beach. Once there, we found the landscape changed: The storm had eaten half the dunes, leveling and extending the beaches, exposing long-buried sand fences put there years ago to build the dunes, and wiping out the reinforced and carefully laid-out paths from boardwalk to beach. Walking the beach, in some places we found sand cliffs, broken sand fences, and shattered steps; in other places, the paths were buried feet deep under new sand. Newly deposited sand placed by a nor'easter obscures a footpath from the beach to homes nearby at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, USA.
“Boardwalk Closed”

(Top [“Dune Gone”]: Canon Powershot G9, integrated lens at 8.2mm, ISO 100, f/8 at 1/200 sec.)

(Bottom [“Boardwalk Closed”]: Canon Powershot G9, integrated lens at 7.4mm, ISO 400, f/2.8 at 1/6 sec.)
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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 11:59 AM. It is filed under Land & Air, thePhotoTourist and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.