Ocean Breaches Dunes In Jersey Shore Town

NORTH WILDWOOD, NJ — A city that's been battling the state for years over beach erosion issues recently experienced what it feared and expected: the ocean broke through the protective dunes.

“Now that it's open it could just get wider at every high tide. What'll happen is that thing will just keep growing,” North Wildwood Mayor Patrick Rosenello told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday.

Officials were already tracking the damage this month, after an earlier storm that had winds up to 70 mph carved out sections of beaches. Read more: Latest Winter Storm Further Erodes Jersey Shore Beaches

Video from the Facebook group “North Wildwood Coastal Processes” shows the ocean breaking through the dunes at 13th Avenue.

At times, the city has taken matters into its own hands, fighting with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Rosenello told the Cape May County Herald that he would be applying for emergency authorization to connect bulkheads.

“It's critically important,” he told the newspaper, as infrastructure is just a few feet away from the high tide line. With further winter storms in store, it is possible for more vulnerable areas to be breached as well.

The city has lost about 1,000 feet of beach over the past five to 10 years, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. North Wildwood and other municipalities on the barrier island have been waiting for the Army Corps' “Five Mile Island Project” to replenish their beaches, but the project is not set to begin until 2025.