Surfrider: “Nature-Based Solutions Prevailed” During Hurricane Erin

Still, “While never making direct landfall,” Surfrider’s Environmental Director Zachary Plopper wrote in a post-hoc report of Hurricane Erin, “its effects were widely felt from Puerto Rico to Maine and beyond; from historical surf and flooded communities to the tragic loss of life.”

“Not surprisingly,” Plopper noted in the wake of Erin, “natural and restored shorelines withstood the storm’s impacts much more effectively than those with coastal armoring and beachfront development. Once again, nature-based solutions to protecting our coasts prevailed.”

Erin passed a good 200 miles away from Rincón, the crown jewel of surfing that lies on the west coast of in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, but, as Surfrider Puerto Rico’s Programs Manager, Hector Varela-Velez told his colleague, “The consequences of poor planning were evident. Concrete walls built in front of the town’s public beach collapsed, leaving structures suspended and worsening the erosion they were meant to prevent.” No matter how much they seem to prove their own inefficacy, sea walls continue to be built.

Around the corner and much nearer to Erin’s path, northward-facing Tres Palmas Marine Reserve, where the coastline remains largely unadulterated by humanity, “there was no major damage,” Varela-Velez noted, adding: “This scenario demonstrates once again that concrete seawalls are not a lasting solution to erosion and instead, they can actually worsen the problem. Natural coastlines, free from rigid structures, show a far greater ability to recover after storms and swells, while also avoiding the high economic costs of reconstruction.”

Up north, or down the Gulf Stream in the Continental U.S., most attention was on North Carolina’s Outer Banks (OBX), where, regardless of being spared a direct hit, the persistent story remains: erosion. Erin’s high winds and heavy rains remained well offshore, however the surf inundated and flooded much of the coastline.

The OBX, which is little to nothing but an ever-shifting series of sandbars, saw a standard dose of flooding across North Carolina Highway 12, the OBX’s 148-mile vital but vulnerable route, particularly between Nags Head and Hatteras at its southern terminus. Within that stretch lie Buxton and Rodanthe, where nearly a dozen houses have tumbled into the sea this decade alone, and where Erin pushed at least a few that much closer to their demise.

But that’s what happens when you build on sand, climate change or no climate change (or chaos, as you like). And constructing buildings atop ocean-facing sands only expedites the shifting of that sand.

Further north in New Jersey, where a small fortune is being spent on beach replenishment, entire sandbars were ruined (both as surf breaks and as storm barriers), and large swathes of beach were lost. Many places where the sand remains untouched, however, were largely spelled. Another coincidence?

New York and New England saw such heavy rips that there were multiple drownings, and this reporter saw rivers cutting through the sands at Rockaway Beach that resembled standing waves, washing sand out to sea at an alarmingly visible rate.

It has, by and large, been a fairly quiet hurricane season, and we were relatively fortunate to have dodged the brunt of Erin, but we have at least six weeks of hurricane season left to go, so let’s not all start counting our lucky stars just yet.

Surfrider’s Climate Action Program aims to bolster our coasts' resilience through restoration, which played a critical role in protecting coastal communities from the impacts of Hurricane Erin. To learn more about how you can get involved and support this work in your community, please visit surfrider.org/climateaction.

Read the Surfrider’s post-Hurricane Erin report here.