Coastal Delaware flooding, high winds to continue
Parts of coastal Delaware remained under water and under siege from a stubborn coastal storm and it could be Monday before the waters recede for good in many of the areas.
With every high tide – six so far by Saturday evening since a coastal storm started pounding the state and region – the water got just a little higher at Long Neck and Oak Orchard. Every flood tide rushed into Indian River Inlet and was trapped in the bay and river by onshore winds.
Even in Millsboro – 12 miles upstream from the inlet – Cupola Park was flooded 3-feet deep as the river overflowed its banks. There was so much water, it was half-way up to the top of the handrail on the park gazebo.
"On Thursday evening we moved our vehicles to higher ground and we walked back," said Doris Bender, who lives along waterfront Mercer Avenue in Oak Orchard. "Since then we've been stuck in the house. We're hoping to get out tomorrow. It may be Monday."
This may not be the worst of it. The strong northeast winds, flooding, power outages and heavy rain could linger through Monday, compounding the problems the state is already experiencing.
At least two more high tides – one early and another in the afternoon – on Sunday are expected to be higher than normal.
“It’s amazing,” said Leon Wierzbowski, who has a place at Pot Nets off Long Neck Road. “Today’s high tides are worse than yesterday’s,” he said on Saturday evening. “There’s just a very strong onshore wind. There are streets that are literally closed off.”
On Friday, many of those residents could at least come and go as the tide receded but not on Saturday.
“There’s no road to go on,” he said. “They are trapped.”
Jim Sekcienski and Karen Johnson Sekcienski have ridden out many a storm in Oak Orchard during their for 20 years there. They used to own a waterfront restaurant there.
“Each day we watch it get worse and worse,” Jim Sekcienski said. “Today (Saturday) was the worst yet.”
Still, he said, it doesn’t compare to the flooding from the back-to-back nor’easters in January and February of 1998, he said.
Karen Johnson Sekcienski said there is already some damage. A dock broke loose and pounded at one of the long piers at Oak Orchard. Boats bobbed up and down in the slips. Deck boards had already popped from many of the piers as waves from the river pounded them from the bottom up.
There were dramatic impacts from the storm along Delaware Bay and the ocean coast, too,
Spectacular waves drew dozens of people into Rehoboth Beach for the early afternoon high tide on Saturday.
“It’s pretty impressive,” said John Dorman, of Lewes. “It’s not often you see it like this.”
During the earlier high tide, the ocean swept over the dunes and onto the boardwalk near the Village Improvement Association Clubhouse between Virginia Avenue and Grenoble Place but there was no damage to the structure or properties. Sand fencing was swept away in some spots.
Sussex County: Limited state of emergency declared
Meanwhile in Indian Beach, the ocean swept under houses.
Flooding from Rehoboth Bay had already inundated many streets in Dewey Beach.
At the south side of Indian River Inlet, dozens more people gathered in the Delaware Seashore State Park parking lot and took selfies with the rollers plowing into Indian River Bay as waves broke and spray went sky high.
At the campground area, a motorist was rescued by the Bethany Beach fire company after he drove off the water-covered road and sank into deeper water up to the edge of his doors.
The fire company had to use a military truck to pull the stranded vehicle out.
But conditions were especially tough in Oak Orchard, near where the Indian River opens into Indian River Bay. Waters there have climbed above critical flood marks on every high tide since Friday afternoon, with high-water periods increasing in length, stranding some residents in the waterside community.
By Saturday afternoon, waters were about 1.5 feet above flood stage, according to a U.S. Geological Survey gauge nearby.
James Westhoff, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said in an email that “roads that have been closed during the storm are likely to see high water until Sunday evening.”
The National Weather Service has forecast tides three to four feet above normal. With the onshore winds, the impact from those higher-than-normal tides compounds because the water has no place to go.
By Saturday, waters peaked at about 1.5 feet above the flood mark, and had remained above it for at least 5½ hours.
In Lewes, the highest early afternoon tide mark at Breakwater Harbor was 7.29 feet above average for the lowest tide of the day, 2.3 feet above the predicted level and just below the 7.57 peak height on Friday.
A coastal flood warning is in effect for all of Delaware. There is a gale warning, which is issued when maritime locations are currently or imminently experiencing winds of gale force, for the Delaware River and Bay and Chesapeake Bay.
In Oak Orchard, Bender and her family members were watching it all from a home surrounded by water, and perched on 8-foot-high concrete block walls, built to meet flood insurance requirements.
"We have water in the bottom of our house, and our neighbors do too," Bender said. "We've been walking back and forth through the water to visit."
Bender said her husband, 2-year-old grandson and daughter are staying at the home as well. The family evacuated when Hurricane Sandy threatened, but opted to stay this time.
"There's been a lot of wind, and a lot of branches have come down," Bender said. "My husband said the waves have been really high at times."
Joyce A. Bartoli, a nine-year resident of Oak Orchard, said she and her husband Louis had been stranded in their home along Charles Street for two days by water she described as “running pretty fast” at times.
Nor'easter, then Joaquin to bring rain, wind, flooding
Long before Saturday’s afternoon high tide along Delaware Bay, access to communities like Slaughter Beach was already difficult because of water rising from the adjacent marsh.
DelDOT closed Cedar Beach Road, the community’s only north side access after several inches of water accumulated along a quarter-mile stretch north of the community.
“I’ve never gotten down here and not been able to pass through, but this looks a little bit higher than usual,” said Carl White of Milford, who abandoned an attempt to churn through the water after about 20 yards. White said he had hoped to get a look at the waves along Delaware Bay.
“I was expecting worse,” White added when asked how the storm stacked up.
In Lewes, city officials closed access to the main beach parking lot, not because of high water but because wind-blown sand made the parking lot impassable.
The weather hampered response efforts of the MERR Institute. They answered reports of partial remains of a dead sea turtle at Lewes on Friday. Suzanne Thurman, the executive director, said they won’t be able to get heavy equipment there until the weather calms down. The adult loggerhead turtle was struck by a boat propeller, she said.
In Rehoboth Beach, with high tide not until 12:39 p.m. Saturday, the ocean was already lapping at the edge of the sand dunes. On Friday, waves rolled over the dunes at some places at the north end of the Boardwalk but they remained intact. Water never reached the boardwalk.
Flooding was a concern even in inland communities like Frederica, where Market Street was closed because of deep water.
In Bowers Beach, the mouth of the Murderkill River rose to just a fraction of an inch below flood level before turning downward Saturday afternoon. Heavy winds drove waves into a froth along the shoreline, with bits of foam caught up in gusts and jetting down street-ends near the bay like a light snowfall.
The same winds drove chains of closely spaced, 1-foot and higher waves inland along the Murderkill as the high tide approached.
Matthew Ewing, an 8-year Bowers Beach resident, made a round trip across the town’s boat ramp parking lot at about noon Saturday, looking for a spot to park high enough to assure its safety from rising water but not completely impressed by the storm.
On a scale of 1-to-10, Ewing said, “I’d give it a six. It’s not as bad as the Mother’s Day Storm” in May 2008.
“We had water up to just an inch from coming into the house on the Mother’s Day Storm,” Ewing said, adding that he would have rated the 2008 blast as an “8” out of 10. “They came around and wanted to take us out, but I stayed.”
Meanwhile, winds increased again on Saturday night. At 7:30 p.m. at peak gust of 41.6 miles per hour was recorded at Harbeson. At Rehoboth and Indian River Inlet, sustained winds are 31.2 miles per hour. The peak gust at the inlet was 40.4 miles per according to the University of Delaware’s Environmental Observing System.
Just before high tide at Rehoboth Beach, a few children ventured down into the slosh of the waves.
Behind them, the sand fencing on the dunes had already been knocked away.
“It’s just beautiful,” said Tara Sheldon, of the powerful waves and the ocean, as she kept a watchful eye on her 7-year-old Emerson. “You have to come see something like this.”
Boyd and Debbie White, who drove to Bowers Beach at midday and hoped to catch a few more shorelines before high tide, said Delaware. The couple described themselves as avid beachcombers who appreciate the power of storms.
“It looks like a typical, moderate nor’easter,” Boyd White said, noting that the storm’s real strength diminished quickly inland. “In Magnolia, there’s hardly any wind at all.”
But White said winds right on the coast appeared to be doing some damage, including in areas of Bowers Beach built up to give contractors room for a rock jetty construction project on the north side of the Murderkill River. Waves had chewed away the newly placed sand, carving out steep cliffs near bayside homes.
Heavy surf scoured away several feet of sand near the houses in just 24 hours.
“It’s a good thing they have those big rocks there” for the jetty, Boyd White said. “If they didn’t they’d lose all of that point.”
New Castle County avoided the worst of this week’s storm. Residents awoke Saturday to only a handful of scattered power outages, according to a Delmarva outage map.
The Delaware Department of Transportation reported some localized flooding and street closures due to downed wires and trees.
Centerville Road near Hillside Road was closed throughout the day for a large tree that fell on wires. Tree cutting crews were on the scene early Saturday afternoon.
A fallen tree also caused Way Road between Old Kennett Road and Rt. 52 to close.
High water on roadways was reported at Pyles Lane at Pigeon Point Road and Old Airport Road at Nonesuch Creek, DelDOT said.
Dan Pydynowski, an Accuweather meteorologist, said the Wilmington area received 1.62 inches of rainfall since Thursday afternoon. The heaviest fell during the mid-day Friday.
Wind gusts topped around 41 mph at 7:30 p.m. Friday, but remained strong throughout the day Saturday, averaging about 30 to 35 mph, he said.
The forecast is expected to remain cloudy with showers throughout the rest of the weekend, but the threat of Hurricane Joaquin has diminished significantly, he said.
“It is passing pretty far off shore,” Pydynowski said.
Meanwhile, in Oak Orchard, it’s the coastal storm that is keeping folks close to home.
“We’ve been surrounded by water for two days. The street that we’re on and two streets off of it, you can’t go in and out,” Bartoli said. “Getting a little stir crazy.”
Bartoli said Sussex County called her home with a message recommending evacuation, but added that she and her husband and several other residents have resolved to stay with their homes.
“There’s too many looters. In previous storms we’ve seen houses get broken into and things stolen,” Bartoli said. “In fact, our shed was broken into one year during a northeast storm.”
Residents in the community check on one, Bartoli said, noting that she relies on a pair of “chest waders” to make the slogging easier. A high spot on an adjacent lot owned by the couple provides a dry parking area for their cars, and is shared with neighbors.
“My husband watches television and I knit and crochet and have parrots, and take care of the neighbors,” Bartoli said. “The people in Oak Orchard take care of each other.”
“Delaware is very lucky. If we had this storm and the hurricane on top of it, we would have been in really bad shape,” Bartoli said.
Reach Molly Murray at 463-3334 at mmurray@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter@MollyMurraytnj . Reach Jeff Montgomery at 463-3334 or jmontgomery@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @JMontgomery_TNJ. Reach Jessica Masulli Reyes at 302-324-2777, jmreyes@delawareonline.com or Twitter @JessicaMasulli.
Email or tweet your storm stories and photos to Molly Murray or Jeff Montgomery.
To monitor coastal flooding: http://coastal-flood.udel.edu/
To see road closures: http://www.deldot.gov/information/travel_advisory/