STONE HARBOR, N.J. (KYW Newsradio) — A few beaches and entrances to the sand are temporarily closed down along the Jersey Shore. It’s to help towns in South Jersey keep people away after last week's major storms tore a trail of damage through the state's beach towns.
The flooding caused by high tide, storms and remnants of Hurricane Ian is gone — but so is a lot of sand off some beaches in Cape May County.
Along parts of the beach in North Wildwood, entrances to the sand are gone, replaced by steep edges and sand bluffs. Warning signs deter residents and visitors from walking off a ledge of sand and dropping 12 to 15 feet onto the beach.
Although there was some local flooding, Kathy Zeits, who has a condo in town, says last week’s storms didn’t bring as much rain to her home as Hurricane Sandy did. Still, last week she played it safe, she said.
“We’re very safe out off Shore. We’ve lived through too many storms that you know … we didn’t want to be here,” she said.
“It was just really strange. It was really strange and shocking,” said Kristine Miller, visiting the beach town from Reading. She admits, it looks very different now.
Erosion wasn’t just concentrated to the Wildwoods. Other towns, like Stone Harbor, had quite a bit of sand swallowed away from last weekend's coastal storms.
All beaches in Stone Harbor are temporarily closed. Officials point to hidden hazards.
“I’m hesitant to walk over the barricade,” said Frank Healy, who lives not far from Stone Harbor.
On Sunday afternoon, he was trying to get a peak at what the beaches look like where the ocean had bitten off great chunks, but all of them were closed off.
“When the beaches were closed in April of 2020 because of COVID, I figured they’d find a way to open them by Memorial Day,” Healy said. "But this is like ... could take the whole winter. Take their time to repair the dunes."
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