The state park campgrounds opened back up today in Sussex county, and the drive on beaches are still closed. When they open is still to be determined. Parking lots are closed at conquest, keybox, savages ditch,and 3rs. You can walk on in CHSP, the Indian River Inlet, and fenwick island
The storm is over but the water remains. We have minor tidal flooding still and some areas are just holding water form supersaturated ground. Bethany Beach still has a lot of water on the streets. Several roads are still flooded and a few are still closed. The sun came out today I almost forgot what it looked like. The winds were not as bad but definitely breezy and a bit chilly by the water. I started in Fenwick Island today and checked the beaches all the way to Rehoboth. In my opinion there is a lot more sand missing from our beaches than what Sandy took. I have been comparing pictures from today to back then and it looks worse. The dune in Bethany took a minor hit during Sandy, this storm eroded it to a ten foot cliff, to the edge of the walk on board walk accesses. Lewes beach has a shelf about three feet tall, which is normal for that area. The Delaware Bay beaches have some damage, and I think Bowers Beach and Big Stone beach took the most damage from erosion. Slaughter beach has a drop off that is about a foot tall at the dune edge. Beach Plum Island State Park for the most part looked okay from Roosevelt Inlet just a lot of water was there at high tide.
This storm really chewed up the beaches. The sand bars out front are breaking waves early and then the water washes in for about to twenty to thirty yards. All of the beaches are relatively flat, Rehoboth Beach seems to be the least flattened, as well Delaware Seashore State Park on the north beaches handled the storm rather well. I couldn’t get to conquest and those beaches, I only could see what was visible from the bridge. Hopefully in a few days the beaches will open for driving on, in the mean time I wouldn’t hold my breath. Most of them look like they will have water to the dune bases at high tide. Which will make driving impossible. Access signs are all gone, I saw one up against the dune fence today, that must have ripped off its mounts and blew onto the dune. There were more metal detector enthusiasts than I have ever seen out there today, I talked to one guy and all he found was about twenty pounds of lead sinkers, I think I recognized a few. He said they signal like coins so you have to check.
The waters are chocolate colored, like the river at Willy Wonka’s Factory. There were a few people setting up to fish Indian River Inlet today, and a few tried fishing the Henlopen pier the last few days. Not much happening as far as catching, I am going to try the surf tomorrow and walk on somewhere. I want to fish the point, but it was underwater the last few days and there is not telling how that landscape has changed. I might take a long walk tomorrow and see just how it made out. Everyone is tired of storm pictures and updates and frankly we are tired of doing them. I just want to fish! That is how everyone feels, all in all we got lucky, this could have been much worse. Now we just need the water to clear up and get back to a normal routine. When the beaches do open be careful drving through debris that collects at the high tide line, small boards tend to have nails in them that will flatten a tire, not to mention glass bottles.
There was a lot of flooding inland in the low lying areas and some folks are still trying to dry out, pump out basements, and deal with storm damage. We certainly didn’t come through this unscathed, but that’s the nature of Nor’easters. They can hammer an area for a couple of days, or they will sit in one spot and grind it up for a several days. We unfortunately dealt with the latter. Some folks feel this was worse than Sandy and others say it was not, I think that depends on where you were. Milton saw water in store fronts like PC Rods and Wine Knot shop along the Broadkill River. At first glance some areas don’t seem too bad, but then you start to realize it was worse especially beach erosion. Rehoboth beach has a series of pylons exposed that were under sand for years, they are sticking out the sand a good seven feet. That is a lot of sand that the storm removed, the ocean usually fills this back in over several weeks so we will have to wait and see how mother nature rebuilds her beaches. Crews were on Rehoboth Beach today removing bundles of dune fence that washed out and created huge twisted piles of fence and these are up and down the coast. We will keep you posted when the beaches are open to drive on, in the mean time you can walk on and fish. If you can’t walk on in a park due to parking issues, try a beach town like Dewey, you can fish all the town beaches, and parking is free.
Fish On!!
Rich King