Westport sea wall holds up to Jan. 18 waves

To the south, North Cove revetment efforts appeared to pay off

By Dan Hammock • January 23, 2018 7:00 pm
DAN HAMMOCK | THE DAILY WORLD Huge waves pummeled the shoreline in front of the Westport by the Sea condominiums Jan. 18. The work the homeowner’s association has done to protect the eroding shoreline seems to have paid off, with only minimal erosion caused by the storm.
DAN HAMMOCK | THE DAILY WORLD Huge waves pummeled the shoreline in front of the Westport by the Sea condominiums Jan. 18. The work the homeowner’s association has done to protect the eroding shoreline seems to have paid off, with only minimal erosion caused by the storm.

Waves from a massive storm in the Pacific crashed into the coast Jan. 18, but it appears beach erosion prevention efforts held firm and there was minimal damage in the South Beach area.

“The sea wall held up fine,” said City of Westport Public Works Director Kevin Goodrich. “We got a lot of water and debris over the top onto the street, but street crews have been busy cleaning it up.”

While the waves did top the sea wall and flood a portion of Westhaven Avenue in the main portion of the marina, “there was no damage to infrastructure,” said Goodrich. “Just a huge amount of sand gets piled up.”

Near Westport Light State Park on West Ocean Avenue, efforts to stabilize the bank in front of the Westport by the Sea condominiums seemed to hold up to the battering.

“Far as I’ve been able to find out from the condos they had a little erosion, nothing serious, no damage to the buildings there,” said Goodrich. “They have that coir mat, so they reset some of that and put in some more sandbags.”

The condo’s homeowners association has been working on stabilizing the shoreline with sand, rock, jute mats and coir mats since 2016. Jute mats and coir mats are made with natural fibers, laid on the banks and covered with sand, which shores up the bank and deflects the energy of the waves.

Farther down the beach at North Cove, waves were starting to come over the banks near the end of old State Route 109 early in the afternoon, but recent “dynamic revetment” projects to the north and south kept erosion to a minimum, according to irrigation district commission chairman David Cottrell.

“I was hustling around during the worst of it, getting Band-Aids on wherever we could. It was definitely a serious test of our defenses!” he said. “It found some of the weak spots we knew about and showed us a couple we didn’t. At the worst spot we lost about 30 feet but would probably have lost 100 feet otherwise, so partial credit. If I had to grade ourselves, I’d give us a 90 percent. Very good, but still room for improvement.”

Dynamic revetment uses sand, cobble, larger rocks and driftwood to form a barrier along shorelines. This combination is designed to take the energy out of wave impacts.

The recently passed state budget has set aside $650,000 for organizations in North Cove to study and engineer a long-term strategy to stave off the erosion.