Stormy winter shrinks some NJ beaches, but shore towns ready

BRIGANTINE, N.J. (AP) — A stormy winter chewed up New Jersey's beaches more than usual, requiring greater efforts to restore them before the summer crowds hit the sand.

With Memorial Day crowds a week away from storming the coast, beachgoers will find the Jersey shore ready for visitors, even if some spots are narrower than they were last year.

Hurricane Joaquin in October, which passed offshore but still churned up enough surf to cause erosion; and a winter storm the last week of January that carved 15-foot drop-offs into some beaches.

The cumulative result of all those waves was beach erosion that was actually worse than Sandy in some parts of the state.

Since it occurred so early in the season, it also left many communities vulnerable, and some had to do emergency repairs to prepare for the next storm.

In February, there were smaller storms that would not normally have caused concern, but because they came after so much erosion had already taken place, some shore towns had to truck in tons of sand to replace what was lost.

Miller said a lot of the sand that was lost to the storms is now sitting in sand bars offshore, but the bars are larger and further from the beaches than normal, so it might take longer to naturally return to the beach through wave action.

The Associated Press surveyed beaches in all four of New Jersey's coastal counties for a snapshot of what the Jersey shore looks like at the start of the season.

"Portable dunes," consisting of large sand piles the borough bulldozed up to the edge of its walkway to protect against winter storms, have been flattened out and smoothed onto the beach.

Was hit hard by the two main winter storms, which washed away a good portion of its beach and exposed a rock wall between the surf and the town's homes.

The town fighting hardest against a proposed statewide dune project has about 1,000 feet of beach, but worries dunes will take up a large percentage of i