Dewey Beach, Del.--The Dewey Beach Infrastructure Committee held a virtual meeting Thursday where they were briefed on the towns' impact of the nor'easter that struck this past weekend, and also discussed plans for future projects to tackle the main issue of flooding.
Dewey Beach is one of the coastal towns that has significantly been impacted by the storm, which is currently in its sixth day.
Coastal towns in the First State are enduring severe beach erosion and damaging debris due to the nor'easter.
According to a statement released by the town of Dewey Wednesday: "Damaging wind gusts and high tides have continued for the past few days, making it difficult for the town and state agencies to properly assess the full extent of the damage."
The town is asking DNREC to help since they don't have the equipment necessary to repair and restore the area. DNREC has also recently implemented new posts and ropes that replaced the beach fence, which partly fell into the ocean.
Michelle Schmidt, the director at Conservation and Watershed Planning at Delaware Center for the Inland Bays, brought up a plan that was created back in 2017 to better prioritize the multiple ongoing projects proposed.
"The goal was to identify different stormwater projects and we ultimately, of course, wanted to protect water quality but then also alleviate flooding throughout the town," she said. "There's nine different drainage basins and the projects range from removing impermeable surfaces and replacing it with more permeable, bioretention areas."
A lot of the flooding happens on the bay side but a lot of the projects in the plan are focused more on the upland areas and Route 1. The committee will continue to meet and set a high priority list of long-term projects for the town to tackle.