To help curb what some people see as more frequent flooding in Surf City, Mayor Francis Hodgson said Barnegat Bay and the channel must be dredged. Although he acknowledged the tides and the full moon “have always caused trouble,” he said the back bay flooding has been a major issue since Superstorm Sandy.
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| Photo by Jack Reynolds Bay Avenue in Surf City remains flooded after a storm. |
“Nobody wants to say it because they’re afraid of somebody coming out and saying, ‘You’re going to kill the bay,’ but they have to dredge the bay and dredge the channel to make room for that water to stay there,” he told concerned residents at a public meeting Wednesday, Feb. 10. “There’s no place for the water to go in the bay. Sandy brought in a lot from the ocean. The back bay is full, and the channels are full.”
John Klose, council president, noted the state has finally awarded a contract to dredge Double Creek Channel and other areas of the bay, due to Sandy, in the fall.
“That’s inconceivable that all that amount of time has gone by,” said Sixth Street resident Mary Franchaise, who told council members the flooding is a serious problem for her and her neighbors.
“As a taxpayer, what can I do to help? What can my family do?” she pleaded. “We would really like to keep the family legacy of my parents by keeping the house for our own families to enjoy. I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”
Franchaise has been living on North Sixth Street in her parents’ former home. The house was originally built in the late 1950s before it was torn down and rebuilt. But the original garage is still very low, she stated.
“I can’t get the water out of the garage. I’m constantly wearing my wellies,” Franchaise said, adding that garbage also comes with the water.
Councilman William Hodgson said the only thing to do to avoid flooding is to raise the property. But local resident Robert Walker said all the grant programs for raising properties he has checked are exhausted.
“Any of them that I did get in touch with said, ‘Lots of luck.’ There’s none left, unless you know something that we don’t,” Walker stated.
Although she knows the risks that come with living on a barrier island, Franchaise is worried for her neighbors, especially one who is “incapacitated who really is not ambulatory” and another who is healing after surgery from cancer.
“The demographics have changed a lot, obviously, where you have a lot of senior citizens. That is a concern,” she said. “Something has to be done, and I don’t know what it is. This is a great island; I don’t want to say goodbye to it.”
She also noted “a monstrosity of a house” being built on Sixth Street is allowing the bay water to rush all the way down the street.
“There’s nothing we can do about it. That’s nature,” said Mayor Hodgson. “But the people in Trenton, the people in the county, somebody’s got to know what’s going on.”
He suggested the county get its own dredge.
“The big problem is that the DEP (state Department of Environmental Protection) won’t let you put spoils anywhere. The state stops everything,” said Klose, noting the beaches were filled in with sand from the bay after the 1962 storm.
Hodgson promised to send a letter to Gov. Christie’s office as well as to other state and county representatives. He recommended affected residents do the same.
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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