Crisfield's storm protection erodes as cost limits Sandy recovery

CRISFIELD, Md. — Michelle Pruitt has lived through many hurricanes in her 55 years.

Flooding during storms is not unusual in her native Crisfield, especially on Cove Street, where she and her husband, Royce, have lived and raised four kids since 1985.

But the flooding that arrived Oct. 29, 2012, during Hurricane Sandy was like none she and other residents had seen before. Pruitt and her mother, who was undergoing treatment for lung cancer and was in frail condition, managed to escape in a skiff and eventually were picked up by a Maryland National Guard truck.

“That was a crazy, crazy night,” she said.

The Pruitts weren’t alone. Starting in the afternoon and throughout the night, 911 operators were swamped with calls for help from Crisfield, located on the Chesapeake Bay about 150 miles south of Philadelphia, and other waterfront areas of Somerset County for water rescues from houses and stranded vehicles, trees that had fallen on houses and at least three house fires.

The hurricane also tore the roof off the Crisfield Police Department, sank docked boats, severely damaged the City Dock and knocked out power for days.

By the time the water receded, the Pruitts and other residents came back to badly damaged houses that soon became moldy and unsafe for habitation.

In the five years since Sandy, an infusion of $25 million in federal grants and volunteer recovery efforts totaling more than $11 million have helped rebuild Crisfield and other affected areas of Somerset County. 

The Somerset County Long Term Recovery Committee, formed soon after the disaster, brought together representatives of local government, as well as nonprofit and faith-based organizations. Many of those people had never worked together before, but they have since formed lasting relationships, said attorney John Phoebus, who was involved with early recovery efforts in Crisfield.

Between the committee and the federal grant money administered by the county, nearly 300 damaged houses have been repaired or replaced and infrastructure has been rebuilt and reinforced in the city which had a population of 2,726 when the storm hit.

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“I think we bounced back,” Phoebus said. “If anything, we came back stronger.”

Crisfield officials agree that many residents and the city itself are better off now than before Sandy hit, but Mayor Kim Lawson wishes that part of the federal recovery money had been spent on efforts to help lessen the effects of future storms.

Proposals by Somerset County to build offshore rock barriers near Janes Island State Park to the north and repair an old, earthen dike system in a marsh southwest of town have been deemed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to be too costly compared to the actual benefits they would provide.

Estimates for the two projects were in the tens of millions of dollars — more than the Corps of Engineers or the county were willing or able to pay.

Still, Lawson thinks something needs to be done.

“Do you move your town?” he said. “We’ve done a lot of things, but we haven’t done anything to mitigate the effects (of storms) over the next 20 to 25 years.”

"Fast and furious"

When the wind from Hurricane Sandy changed direction and began pushing water from Tangier Sound onto the streets, the Pruitts were at home with Michelle’s mother, Diane Hinman.

“The water came so fast and furious,” she said. “Royce said, ‘You need to get your mom out of here.’ ”

The water was too deep to drive through, so they called 911 for help. In the meantime, Royce, a waterman who keeps several boats in the yard, pulled a skiff around to the front door and loaded Michelle and her mother into it.

“For the first time —  and probably the last time — I was thankful for the many boats in our yard,” she said with a laugh. 

Royce pulled the boat through the chest-deep water down Cove Street when they saw a National Guard truck headed toward them. Soon, Michelle and her mother were loaded onboard, but the route to dry land hit a snag: The truck got stuck on an obstacle — probably a mailbox — beneath the floodwaters.

While they were waiting to be rescued a second time, the Guardsmen responded to nearby calls for help from a woman with a newborn baby and an elderly man with only one leg. Eventually, all of the evacuees were transferred to another truck and taken to high ground. Michelle and her mother were picked up by her brother and taken to his house in Kingston, located between Westover and Marion Station.

Meanwhile, Royce had no sooner returned home to move valuables upstairs and keep an eye on the house than a tree came crashing down onto the roof over the back deck. 

Even more damage was discovered once the storm passed and the water receded.

The Pruitts returned to a house with a crumbling foundation, and the structure itself was listing. The couple got only $5,000 from their flood and homeowner’s insurance policies, and used the money to make some repairs.

But they soon discovered mold, then some of the walls began shifting.

Next door, Al and Rosemary Parker of New York discovered similar damage to their house, which serves as a second home. 

The Parkers weren’t in Crisfield during the hurricane, but they got reports and photos from Michelle Pruitt. At least a foot of water had gotten inside the house.

“There was mold everywhere,” Rosemary Parker said.

Getting help

The Parkers had flood insurance and used the money to gut the house and then put everything back again. They camped out on an enclosed porch while the work was being done.

The couple now worries they may have to go through the same sort of stress and expense if Crisfield experiences similar flooding in the future. Rosemary Parker said she anxiously watched news of this year’s Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria as they devastated parts of the mainland United States and several Caribbean islands.

“I was on pins and needles,” she said.

Elevating the house above the flood plain seemed the logical solution, and the Parkers turned to the Somerset County Long Term Recovery Committee for help.

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The committee recently received a $1 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency specifically to pay for elevating buildings in Crisfield and other low-lying areas of the county, said Kim Hopkins, the committee's construction manager.

The Parkers are waiting to see if their grant application is approved.

The Pruitts, too, turned to the Long Term Recovery Committee for help repairing their crumbling foundation. The group sent an engineer over to inspect it, but he ended up condemning the structure.

The couple had no idea what to do next, then Mennonite Disaster Services called and offered to build the Pruitts a new house. 

“They said, ‘We think we have a solution for you’,” Michelle Pruitt said.

She and Royce and their youngest son, Chris, had been on the other end of disaster relief when they volunteered with the United Methodist Committee on Relief in Tarboro, North Carolina, following Hurricane Floyd in 2008. Now it was their turn to get help.

“It was truly an answered prayer,” she said.

The house, which originally belonged to Royce Pruitt’s great-grandmother, was torn down in summer 2014. The family was able to move into their new home in February 2015.

The new house was built to withstand future storms. It is raised above the flood plain, and was constructed with two-by-sixes wall studs instead of two-by-fours and has extra strapping on the roof beams. The heating system and duct work are now in an attic space.

The house was built by revolving crews working with Mennonite Disaster Services, which arrived in Crisfield soon after the hurricane hit. Each crew member signed their names inside the walls of the new house.

Most stayed in a building on the American Legion property dubbed Kamp Kairos, and the Pruitts joined them for dinner once a week for the duration of their stay. Michelle made sure to bring two Smith Island cakes with her each week.

“We thanked them in every way we could,” she said.

The Pruitts also paid tribute to Michelle's mother, who died four months after the hurricane. Hinman always used to say there is a silver lining in every cloud, so the Pruitts named their new house The Silver Lining.

"That adventure was her final silver lining and she was very proud to have experienced it," Michelle Pruitt said.

More recovery

Meanwhile, Somerset County government and the Long Term Recovery Committee were busy getting help to hundreds of other people who suffered losses in Hurricane Sandy.

Following the superstorm, the county received an $8.6 million Community Development Block Grant, part of a $50.5 billion emergency measure passed by Congress. 

It was followed by a second award to the county of $16.7 million.

All of the money has been committed and must be spent by August 2019, said Gary Pusey, the county’s planning director.

Part of the money was originally designated for the elevation of houses, but if the damage exceeded more than 50 percent of the value of the house, the money was used to build a new one.

“It didn’t take much to get to the 50 percent,” Pusey said.

The county ended up elevating only one house, but it has rebuilt 23 and two more are scheduled to be built, he said. All were built 2 to 3 feet above the base flood plain.

“Theoretically, if another hurricane comes, those houses should survive another Sandy,” he said.

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Other funds were used to repair and shore up damaged infrastructure in Crisfield, make repairs at the Crisfield Housing Authority, build a new Head Start addition at Crisfield High School, to demolish the former Whittington Primary School and to build new jetties to protect Rhodes Point on the west side of Smith Island.

By the Long Term Recovery Committee, 21 houses have been rebuilt, and revolving crews of volunteers with the United Methodist Committee on Relief repaired more than 250 homes in the county.

Part of the money awarded to the county also was used for a feasibility study to repair an old tidal dike system in a marshy area outside of town. The earthen dike dates back to the early 20th century, but parts of it have eroded away during the past century.

Crisfield and Somerset County officials also believed that construction of offshore stone barriers at Great Point on Janes Island would reduce wave action at the City Dock, and the county helped pay a portion of the cost of a feasibility study for the project.

However, neither the dike or the jetties are likely to be built.

Cost outweighs benefit

In November 2014, two years after Hurricane Sandy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed a cost sharing agreement with the city of Crisfield for a study of the proposed project at Janes Island.

The Corps identified four breakwater placement options to reduce wave energy, according to Sarah Gross, a spokeswoman for the Corps of Engineers Baltimore District. The costs of the four options ranged from $12.52 million to $23.95 million.

But an economic analysis of these alternatives resulted in a negative benefit-to-cost ratio for all four breakwater options, meaning that the total annualized costs to construct the project outweigh the annualized benefits, Gross said. 

“It is used to ensure scarce resources are allocated in the most efficient manner possible,” she said.

In August 2016, the Corps of Engineers signed a separate cost sharing agreement with the Somerset County Commissioners for a feasibility study of the old tidal dike system.

The tidal dike is about 7 miles in length, in poor condition and provides minimal protection to structures in the floodplain southeast of Crisfield, Gross said. 

The Corps of Engineers identified two alternatives: constructing a tidal dike on the existing footprint of the current dike; or constructing a tidal dike on a refined footprint — a reduction of about 15 percent.

The study evaluated and compared tidal dike height variations of 4, 5, 6 and 8 feet, totaling eight sub-alternatives — four heights for each alternative. 

The estimated costs ranged from $23.1 million for a 4-foot-high refined dike to $44.6 million for an 8-foot dike following the current alignment.

But both studies ended with the same result: Neither could be implemented through the Corps’ Continuing Authorities Program due to the cost limitations. The program allows the agency to carry out certain projects without additional congressional approval as long as it does not exceed a certain dollar amount.

The CAP limit is now $10 million, but at the time of the Janes Island study, it was $5 million, Gross said.

The decision not to move forward with the two projects frustrates city officials who are worried about the future of Crisfield, especially as hurricanes are becoming stronger and more frequent.

Lawson, the mayor, said Janes Island once protected the city, but with erosion and sea level rise, it is quickly disappearing. Building breakwaters there would help.

“That’s our only protection,” he said.

Stemming the tide

For now, city and county leaders are focused on fixing the small things that can help stop some of the flooding, such as cleaning out ditches.

Since Sandy, Crisfield now has rebuilt storm drains, improved curbing to direct the flow of water and new tide gates. The city also hopes to conduct a drainage study sometime in the future that could help pinpoint problems, said City Manager Rick Pollitt.

Some of the federal grant money sent to the county also has been used for a new generator at one of the city’s wells, to build a concrete wall around a sewage lift station and bulkhead replacement at the City Dock.

Elsewhere in Somerset County, recovery money is being used to decommission the Fairmount wastewater treatment plant, which was flooded during Sandy. Customers will be connected to new lines that will carry waste to the Princess Anne plant.

The federal funds also paid for a new county dock in Rhodes Point, emergency generators at the county offices in Princess Anne and at the emergency shelter at Washington High School, a new homeless shelter, and helped 58 watermen recoup their equipment losses.

Five years after Sandy, Lawson said the city has come a long way, thanks to the hurricane recovery funds, the Long Term Recovery Committee and all of the volunteer construction crews.

“We’re still doing stuff,” he said. “But what would the city look like without all the help?”

Twitter: @LizHolland5