DELMARVA. - A powerful nor’easter brought serious flooding and beach erosion to coastal communities from South Bethany, Delaware, to Ocean City, Maryland, over the weekend, leaving some streets hardly passable and washing away portions of beaches and dunes.
Bayside streets across Ocean City were covered by standing water, with some areas seeing an estimated two feet of flooding. On First Street, some drivers were able to get through, but several others attempted to navigate the water before turning around because of the deep water.
The storm also caused significant beach erosion. At the 72nd Street beach in Ocean City, waves and high water carved away a noticeable portion of the dunes.
Similar problems were noticed farther north in Delaware. In Fenwick Island, floodwaters covered bayside areas including Dagsboro Street and nearly reached Coastal Highway.
South Bethany also experienced a combination of flooding and erosion. Water from canals spilled onto streets in some areas, including Canal Drive, while beaches near North Division Street were significantly eroded.
Some residents made the best of the flooding, including Ryan Frene, who took a paddleboard onto a flooded Ocean City street.
"It's not every day you get your own personal Venice in your backyard," Frene says.
For others familiar with coastal storms, the flooding was severe but not entirely unexpected.
"It's up there," Frene says. "You'll see flooding like this pretty substantially and frequently around the area, whether it be from nor'easters or hurricanes. Kind of prepared for it at this point."
James Robertson came out to see the conditions along the beach in Fenwick Island, where erosion was less severe than in parts of Ocean City. He says storms like this still raise concerns about what beaches could look like heading into the summer season.
"When you see the waves that they were like the other day, you think about the beach, right?" Robertson tells CoastTV. "How is that going to affect things in the summertime then? Up, you know, farther closer to Ocean City, we saw like the beach was gone."
As the nor'easter moves away from the coast, communities are left assessing the flooding and erosion it left behind.
