Nine horses trotted across the silky sand of Island Beach State Park, their tails swaying in the mid-April sun.
Nearby, a well-built seal lounged in the waves, exhausted but unperturbed.
Farther south, in Sea Isle City, giant machines driven by crews oxidized by sea breezes and shielded from the sun pumped a slurry of sand onto the shore.
From 1,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, the rumbling from my seat in the Cessna 172 Skyhawk wasn’t just the rumbling of a propeller.
It was drum roll for the Jersey Shore Symphony Orchestra, just weeks away from its summer debut.
On a recent sunny Sunday, we took to the skies and embarked on a rare sight of 130 miles of the Garden State’s most precious and precarious beauty.
of wetlands. of dry land. There are islands with strange names and world-famous but still barren promenades.
With the Jersey Shore’s high-profile season just weeks away, several towns are sounding the sand alarm and are pleading with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prioritize certain pieces of the puzzle. There’s a lot to pick up on the ground, like a sand cliff behind an orange cone, a “No Trespassing to the Beach” sign, and the mayor perilously exploring the decaying dunes.
However, we wanted to see the coastline from above.
In my own little world, I finally absorbed everything from the clouds.
The calm of spring before the storm of summer.
From Belmar to the Wildwoods
Each town on the Jersey Shore told its own story.
Pencil-like fragments of Mantoloking float casually between the meager Metedeconch River and the endless Atlantic Ocean.
Residents of high-rise homes in Sea Isle City are no doubt comforted by the hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand currently being washed onto the beach.
Much of the beach has disappeared, and property owners in North Wildwood, who are just a stone’s throw away from submergence, are likely being overlooked with envy.
I was sitting in the back seat of a single-engine plane, with the pilot at the controls and photojournalist Andrew Mills sitting in front of me. I clutched my map and noted each of the strangely named landmarks we sped past. Muddy Hall Island, Kitts Thorofare, Granny Creek.
Some names, like South Cape May, no longer appear on maps of the Garden State, and others, like Sea Breeze, make the landscape look much different than it once did. There, nature is reclaiming what was already hers.
Yet we fight and build on what we think is ours.
3 billion dollars of taxpayer money Over 245 million cubic yards of sand It’s not enough that it’s been used to replenish Jersey Shore beaches since 1936. All spent in cities whose sand has only been blown away again by time and weather, and yet where each feels they need sand as much, if not more, than the next. Ta.
In just five short weeks, the Jersey Shore will be taken over by beachgoers building sandcastles, running into the freezing water, and finally getting a tan.
Recent estimates indicate that as many as 48 million people visit coastal counties during peak months.
Small towns swell with this number and the economic benefits increase as well.state legislator It is said that beach tourism is creating New Jersey receives more than $40 billion each year and supports more than 330,000 jobs.
The importance of retaining these tourists is perhaps most evident in the work the town is doing to prepare its beaches.
With the wealthy Avalon resourceful toms river They may be in a good position to have enough municipal funds on hand to rebuild their coasts.
But other Jersey Shore towns, Brigantine, Brick and Atlantic City, are now vying with federal and state planners to expedite efforts to refill their beaches before the end of spring.
Why that was important was clear in Atlantic City, where the walkway from the boardwalk to the beach abruptly ended near the Showboat Resort and Ocean Casino. During Sunday’s high tide, whitewater washed up on the shore, crashing against railings and already eroded areas.
It’s a never-ending battle, highlighted by the timber frame houses being built in towns such as Margate, Belmar and Avon-by-the-Sea.
A new analysis of 10 years of construction and tax records shows that budding development is reshaping some parts of the coastal region. And, according to Zillow, the state is growing nearly three times faster in flood zones than in safer areas. 2019 report.
As erosion increases and climate change shapes our future, so too will conversations about how viable it is to continue living near the ocean.
But the people I saw below were equally unwise.
A group of players gathered at a soccer field a short walk from the beach to hear from their coach. Families pushed strollers and searched for food along Point Pleasant Beach. A parasailing pair balanced on the crashing waves overlooking Strathmere Water Tower.
As my flight drew to a close, we crossed the North Wildwood breakwater. Perhaps the most hopeless of the Jersey Shore towns, it is a prologue to the future of this entire coast.
There were no seals, herds of horses, or army corps crews roaming about before the busy season. Here, he crashed nearly 12 blocks of non-existent beach, where the sea was uninterrupted and once a rich sandy beach.
