OC mayor: Fishing pier to be ready for summer

For the third time in four years, workers are going to have to scramble to fix Ocean City’s fishing pier in time for Memorial Day and the start of the resort’s tourism season.

Hulking, 15-foot-tall waves battered the shore over the weekend, toppling the T-shaped easternmost end of the pier. By Monday afternoon, town crews had gathered the splintered remnants into a low pile in the inlet parking lot, save for a few boards still littering the beach.

Beeping and the roar of diesel engines filled the air as backhoes scraped sand from the parking lot back onto the beach.

The scene was reminiscent of the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, which lopped off about 100 feet off the end of the pier in October 2012. Then came a winter storm in February 2014, which damaged the nose of the structure, leaving it to rest at a 40-degree downward angle.

In both cases, the tourist-magnet was back open by the next Memorial Day.

Mayor Rick Meehan said Monday that the the iconic structure would be ready for the holiday just over four months away. But a representative of Bay Shore Development Corp., which has a contract to run the pier for the town, was more tentative.

“We’re still assessing the damage because we couldn’t really get down to check it out until the weather cleared out today,” said Dean Langrall, director. of sales and marketing.

It’s too early to say how long it will take to repair the damage, he added. The company, which also owns the adjacent Jolly Roger amusement park, should have a more complete assessment by mid-week.

“It’s just the end of it” that was visibly damaged, Langrall said. “But when we assess it, we’re going to assess the whole thing.”

Overall, many residents were breathing a sigh of relief Monday in Ocean City.

“I think we made out very well,” Meehan said. “It was a violent storm and we received some beach erosion and some minor damage to the eastern side of the dune.”

Despite a storm surge of 5.4 feet above the average low-water level, the mayor said he was unaware of any structural damage to any buildings. The moderate flooding in low-lying areas was expected, as it is with just about any storm.

It was a close call, though. The powerful nor’easter fell just short of Sandy-level flooding and surge, Meehan said.

“Another 6 inches to a foot and we would have been right there,” he said.

The National Weather Service had predicted 6 feet of extra water, but the gauge at the inlet showed just 4.9 feet at its peak during the Friday-through-Saturday storm, said meteorologist Jeff Orrock. He suspects the gauge may have malfunctioned.

“Some of the pictures we saw, it looked worse than that,” he said.

He, too, believes the low-lying town got lucky. Had the wind been blowing directly onshore instead of from the north and north-northeast, the waves and surge would have crashed farther inland, Orrock said.

Bay Shore is responsible for repairing any damage to the pier under its contract with the town, Meehan said. He wasn’t surprised by the battering it took.

“It’s the most vulnerable section of Ocean City,” he said. “It just crushed down on the pilings, took out the pilings and, of course, the decking went with it.”

Contact reporter Jeremy Cox at 410-845-4630 or on Twitter @Jeremy_Cox.