Barnegat Light Tsunami

Tsunami means “harbor wave” in Japanese

On June 13, 2013, it was reported that a small tsunami struck the Jersey Shore and was observed near the Barnegat Inlet. 

wNYC.org reported:

“Brian Coen told observers he was spear fishing near the mouth of Barnegat Inlet when he spotted a strong outgoing tide expose rocks before he saw a wave 6-feet high span the inlet. Two of three people who were swept off the rocks of the jetty by the wave required medical attention. Scientists say it’s also possible the slumping at the Continental Shelf east of New Jersey played a role.”

The National Weather Service reported that the tsunami was observed by 30 tide gauges, and may have been caused by the “derecho” storm front, which is one of several bizarre weather patterns to strike the area in recently years.

A freak six-foot wave may not be of much concern. However, a tsunami can be more than an overused metaphor. Over the past decade, the tsunami has proved to be the most devastating of all natural events. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that struck Thailand and Indonesia killed over 200,000 people.

Tsunami in Thailand

In 2011, an earthquake caused a tsunami that struck Japan. Entire towns were uprooted from their foundations and washed away.

Japanese Tsunami

The question arises whether a serious tsunami could ever strike the Jersey Shore. The stunning answer is that the worst tsunami of all could spell the end of the Jersey Shore, along with the entire east coast of the U.S. The culprit of this mega-tsunami would be the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands off the coast of Spain. Scientists have stated that the volcano, which has erupted in 1470, 1585, 1646, 1677, 1712, 1949 and 1971, is unstable could send a rock slab the size of a small island crashing into the sea.

Cubre Vieja

After the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck in 2004, scientists studied what could happen if Cumbre Vieja collapsed, and the results were not encouraging. The collapse would send a shockwave across the Atlantic Ocean that would reach the East Coast in 8 hours. The tsunami could impact the shore with 200 foot waves that would wash 20 miles inland.

From the BBC: Scientists have been monitoring the volcano in an attempt to give warning of a collapse.

Say you are at the shore one day (or anywhere along the East Coast) and you see a “breaking news” report on TV or your cell phone that a volcano has erupted and collapsed on the Canary Islands. Your best chance of survival would be to get you and your loved ones into a car and drive west as fast as possible – before everyone else decides to do the same. Only the very few who decide to leave first would get out. There is no chance that local roads and highways could support everybody trying to leave all at once. You would have to get half way to Philadelphia to avoid the wall of water that would destroy everything in its path. Millions of people along the East Coats would die.

If you have a boat, then you could grab as much food and water as you can, and travel out to sea to deep water. There, the tsunami wave would travel harmlessly under your boat. The State of Hawaii recommends this for a severe tsunami threat. It is only close to the shore that the tsunami wave is directed upward by the continental shelf.

If you do not have access to a boat or means to escape, then you might as well have an 8-hour party.

In Japan, ancient tsunami warnings have always dotted the coast:

“High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants,” the stone slab reads. “Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”

The Japanese have had the benefit of high ground near the sea to help them escape tsunamis. Unfortunately, the Jersey Shore does not. If a mega-tsunami comes, it will be many times stronger then the tsunamis that struck Thailand and Japan. If you are at the shore or another low lying area, there will be little hope for escape.

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Early Spring – Time for a Boating Safety Refresher

Spring is officially here, but in terms of the weather it feels like we’re still in February. There’s not much boating going on except for the Crowder Gulf team scanning the bottom and removing houses and cars from the bay.

Now may be a good time to take a refresher course in boating safety. I remember taking my first boating safety course with the Coast Guard Auxiliary 25-years ago. After teaching the “Rules of the Road”, they showed a short film of a boat spontaneously combusting while being fueled at a marina.

I have no doubt that many boaters on the Barnegat bay would benefit greatly from a boating safety course – especially people that are new to boating. There are many dangerous boaters out there that don’t even know some of the “rules of the road” for boating. Inexperienced boaters combined with a lack of a police presence on the bay can lead to boat accidents – which are infinitely more dangerous than car accidents.

That’s going to hurt in the morning

I’ll be taking a refresher course this spring. This website has a list of boating safety courses throughout NJ that last 2 days and cost $75. I may take the April 22nd course in Hoboken because it is only 1 block from my apartment. Upon the completion of the course you receive a NJ boating safety certificate.

An old poem from an 1874 book titled Eldrdige Tide and Pilot Book contains the most important navigation rules – very useful for night driving:

When all three lights I see ahead,
I turn to Starboard and show my Red:
Green to Green, Red to Red,
Perfect Safety — Go Ahead.

But if to Starboard Red appear,
It is my duty to keep clear —
To act as judgment says is proper:
To Port or Starboard, Back or Stop her.

And if upon my Port is seen
A Steamer’s Starboard light of Green,
I hold my course and watch to see
That Green to Port keeps Clear of me.

Both in safety and in doubt
Always keep a good look out.
In Danger, with no room to turn,
Ease her, Stop her, Go Astern.

The U.S. Coast Guard has an excellent guide to recreational boating.

Some important boating safety rules I think should be mentioned quickly for Barnegat bay boaters are:

• Don’t overload your boat – if your boat is too heavy it will become unstable and will not handle properly. Check the capacity plate near the throttle;
• Give way to boats that are anchored, fishing, or going slowly;
• Always pass oncoming boats to the right (starboard);
• Make sure your navigation lights are operation for night use;
• The red channel marker is the right side of channel when returning from the sea (red, right, return);
• Stay clear of “no wake” zones;
• Be aware of oncoming boats when crossing behind another boat;
• Fly an orange flag when towing a water-skier or raft and keep clear of boat traffic; and
• Go slowly and use a search light at night.

Always keep a mind towards safety when boating. That way, you and your guests can avoid becoming one of the horrific boating accidents that are bound to happen each summer.

FEMA Flood Maps and the Dreaded “V” Zone

After Hurricane Sandy, FEMA, which administers the National Flood Insurance Program, has designated much of the Barnegat bay coastline as a “V” zone for insurance purposes. This means that waves over 3 feet are to be expected, and foundations of homes built in this area should not obstruct water.

The New York Times has created a map for the “V” zone throughout the Jersey shore. 

As can be seen on this map, the “V” zone can stretch many blocks inland and follows lagoons. FEMA has stated that these maps were in the works before Sandy struck. Many towns in the area have complained to FEMA that the “V” zone is not accurate. However, the geologists and weather scientists that designed these maps are not likely to be swayed by emotional appeals. However, Brick Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis believes that these maps may change later in the year.

In order to obtain reasonable rates for flood insurance in the “V” zone, houses must be built “on stilts.” The area around the stilts may be enclosed with walls that are designed to break away during a flood. Existing homes do not need to be raised, but new construction or houses that must be rebuilt must comply with new building codes. If flood insurance rates increase from $1,000 to $7,000 a year or more (up to $31,000!), existing home owners may consider raising their homes.

Similar building codes have been in place in Long Beach Island since the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962.

Toms River is having a seminar on home elevation at High School East on March 23 with several engineers present to answer questions. Toms River Council President George Wittmann also stated that the town is looking into obtaining grants for home elevation from both FEMA and the state.

FEMA has setup a website for Frequently Asked Questions. The full sticker shock of the new flood insurance rates will not be felt for 4 years. “Starting Jan. 1, 2013, premium rates for subsidized non-primary residences will begin increasing. Rates will increase 25 percent per year until they reflect the full risk-rate.” 

FEMA explains that homes that were not destroyed or were substantially improved may be receiving subsidized rates. As such, homes that survived Sandy may not feel the brunt of the flood insurance premium increases. If your home is substantially damaged, FEMA may pay up to $30,000 towards raising your house.

Even with homes being raised, FEMA flood insurance rates will rise dramatically in the area. This has happened in places like New Orleans and Florida following hurricanes last decade. The increased rates will likely lower property values.

Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Vince Barrella said, “I can see the reason for adopting these maps, but it’s killing us. We’re going to lose 25 percent of our property value.”

These FEMA maps could very well change the entire character of the Barnegat bay. I wonder what percent of homes will be raised in ten years time. If a hurricane comes again, then houses that are raised will be spared. Is it a good thing in the long run?

Pirates and Privateers of the Barnegat Bay

The people of the Jersey Shore have always identified with pirates. Boats fly pirate flags during the summer. The mascot of Toms River High School East “Raiders” is a violent looking pirate. Our favorite bars in Seaside are Captain Hooks and Riggers. The men and women you see in Seaside are tanned, scantily clad, and covered with tattoos and piercings. But did you know that the Barnegat bay area has a rich pirate history?

Pirates were active in this area during the late 1600s, the heyday of piracy in the New World, when many pirate crews preyed on Spanish Galleons weighed heavy with gold. One of these pirates was named William Kidd. “Captain Kidd” was a Scottish sailor who was given permission by England to attack French ships, as England and France were at war. When there were no more French ships to attack, his crew became restless and talked of mutiny. To satisfy his crew, he agreed to attack ships of other nations. Captain Kidd was known to personally slay unruly members of his crew on the decks of his ships, the Adventure Galley and Adventure Prize. Kidd amassed a fortune of fine goods from the Indies and several tons of gold.

Captain Kidd learned that the English had marked him a Pirate and were looking to apprehend him. When they heard that they would consider granting him clemency, he hid his treasure in several places to use as a bargaining tool. He sailed from Jamaica to New York City, reportedly stopping at several spots on the Jersey Shore. At that time, the Barnegat bay was considered a natural harbor for ocean vessels, with the Toms River easily accessible from the Cranberry Inlet – a now closed channel between the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat bay, where the Seaside Bridge now stands. Local legend has it that Captain Kidd buried his treasure on the shoreline of the Barnegat bay, and then killed the men that helped dig the hole. Captain Kidd turned himself into the authorities in New York, who sent him to England to be hanged in 1701.

Captain Kidd buries his treasure at a secret location

The highest land on the Toms River is the town of Island Heights. On the banks of the river is a place called Money Island, where the cliffs lead down to a small beach that stays out of sight from the main part of the river. Could this be the place where Captain Kidd buried his treasure?

When Captain Kidd allegedly visited the Barnegat Bay, it was an area devoid of civilization, except for indians and adventurous woodsmen. Over the next 80 years, small villages and settlements formed along the bay, growing into the towns we know today. In 1776, the American Revolution began, and many communities throughout the Jersey Shore were divided between the Patriots and those loyal to the British.

In 1782, a New Jersey Patriot named Joshua Huddy was stationed at the blockhouse at the village of Toms River with 25 men to protect the local area and assist in privateer efforts to attack British and loyalist shipping. In August 1780, Huddy was issued a commission to operate a gunboat, The Black Snake, as a privateer. Huddy concentrated his efforts on attacking, and killing Loyalists who were trading with the British. Huddy was accused of war crimes in the hanging over a dozen men, including a Loyalist farmer.

On March 24, 1782, a British force of 80 men burned the blockhouse at Toms River and hanged Huddy.

Toms River blockhouse

The death of Huddy did not stop privateering on the Barnegat Bay. Several months later in October of 1782, a privateer ship named the Alligator, commanded by Captain Andrew Steelman, found a deserted British ship with a valuable load of tea stranded on the shoals near the Barnegat Inlet. The crew of the Alligator stopped to unload the cargo, and made camp on the beach during the night. Captain John Bacon, who operated a whaleboat in the area with a band of Loyalist refugees, learned of this and hid in the shoals of the Barnegat bay throughout the night. At dawn, Bacon and his crew slaughtered the sleeping men of the Alligator, in an incident that has come to be known as the Long Beach Island Massacre.

During the 1800s, the country grew, and the waters off the Jersey shore became a busy and important shipping route. However, the waters off of New Jersey were particularly dangerous, because there were no cities to illuminate the shoreline on stormy nights, and only a 40-foot lighthouse at Barnegat inlet that mariners considered to be inadequate. This volatile situation gave rise to a new breed of opportunistic pirates.

On October 5, 1890, The New York Times published a 10-page story titled “Pirates of the Barnegat Bay“.

The story was written off of the lengthy admissions of “Charlie of Forked River”, who recalled the heady days of the 1850s, when communities of people along the Barnegat bay lived off of the many shipwrecks that littered the Jersey Shore. When sailors drowned and were washed ashore, Charlie and his friends would point out the dead bodies to the local coroner for a $5 award. Then, they would dig up the dead bodies from the anonymous graves and put them back onto the beach, where they would collect another $5 award from the coroner.

In those days, taking the shipping crates and barrels that washed ashore was called “wrackin'” and “piratin'”. “Everybody ’round here was into it up to their chins… All you had to do was go over to the beach and help yourself.”

“How’d we do it? Well, ye see we’d keep our eyes and ears open when there was a storm, knowing somethin’ must go wrong, for that was about the deadest sure spot for gettin’ astray… It was a big scramble as soon as the news would get along the main that there was a ship goin’ to pieces, and the ones that got out there first as likely as not got the choiciest pickin’s… There wasn’t any love lost, any way, between the Barnegat men and them as was from Tom’s River… They’d take the last penny out of a deadman’s pockets and then kick him back into the surf because it wasn’t dollars.”

“It was perfectly legitimate, of course, to wrack on salvage, protectin’ the goods for the underwriters and gettin’ a fair per cent of the proceeds, but on a whole we wasn’t wrackin’ on them terms. We’d get the goods over the hills and out of sight, and bury them deep in the sand.”

Some of the goods Charlie recalls getting are: “boxes of silks, satins, velvets, ribbons, linen goods, India shawls, kid gloves, boots, shoes, rubber goods and liquors.”

In 1861, the current 172-foot tall Barnegat lighthouse was constructed, which greatly reduced the amount of shipwrecks off of the Jersey Shore.

This also spelled the end to the easy times for Charlie and his pirate friends. “[U]s thrifty beach searchers were left out in the cold. We’ve had to give our attention to oysters, clams, fish, and game ever since, and it don’t pay near as well as the old-time wrackin’ used to.”

You may think Charlie and the “wreckers” are more opportunists and common thieves rather than pirates. However, Charlie recalled rumors of “lamps in the old lighthouse going out some foggy nights, and lights being planted right out on the north point o’ beach, and of vessels in distress being deceived in other ways, resultin’ in their going to pieces on the sand bars out there. I never seen any of this, but I’ve been over there just after such yarns was told and got hold of a pretty good boatload of swag.”

“Fertilizer Act” to improve water quality of Barnegat Bay

I remember growing up in the 1980s when my neighbors would drag a seining net through the Goose Creek area of the bay. They would walk the net out 30 or so feet. When they came back, the net contained numerous crabs and fish. I remember seeing a tiny seahorse, and a puffer-fish that we tried to throw back, but would only float atop the water. These days, the Goose Creek part of the bay is mainly populated by stinging jellyfish and the hardy crab.

The Barnegat bay jellyfish have long stinging streamers that can extend for several feet. The “jellyfish plague” and declining water quality has often been blamed on lawn fertilizer. Over the past few decades, Ocean County has had an extraordinary population boom. In decades past, the shore house standard was having rocks in the front and back yards, and an old boat on cinder blocks on the side of the house. In more recent times, new neighborhoods have spread throughout Barnegat bay watershed, with their green lawns stretching from Fort Dix all the way to the bay. 

The Barnegat Bay’s water quality problems are not unique to the area. Other estuaries, such as the Chesapeake Bay, are having similar water quality issues. In response, the United States EPA started the National Estuary Program to help stabilize these ecosystems. The Barnegat Bay Partnership (located at Ocean County College) is part of the National Estuary Program, and has a website dedicated to the jellyfish problem.

The Barnegat Bay Partnership lists numerous factors that lead to the jellyfish plague, including increased development of docks and bulkheads, as well as “nutrient loading” from fertilizer runoff. The nutrient rich fertilizer runoff leads to increased plankton, which happens to be the favorite food of jellyfish.

Thankfully, the State of New Jersey and Chris Christie have passed a tough new fertilizer law. Starting this spring, the fertilizer sold at stores in NJ will have a different chemical composition. Pursuant to the “Fertilizer Act, effective January 5, 2013, all fertilizer products for turf must contain at least 20 percent slow-release nitrogen, and zero phosphorus. The NJ DEP details this new act, as well as the other steps being taken to increase the quality of the bay.

Hopefully, the efforts taken by the State will lead to better water quality and marine life that will lead to more enjoyment for Barnegat Bay boaters and everyone who lives near or visits our waterways.

Barnegat Bay Trashed by Superstorm Sandy – Underwater Hazards Remain

On October 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy brought an unprecedented storm surge to the Barnegate bay and its surrounding areas. On the Friday 3 days before the storm, I had a feeling that Sandy could cause major damage to my parents house on the Barnegat Bay in Toms River. I rushed down the shore from my apartment in Hoboken to help prepare.

As I helped my dad secure the deck furniture and outdoor areas, my girlfriend (now fiance) pleaded with me to come back to Hoboken so would could celebrate Halloween. I told her that Hoboken would likely be flooded as well, and that Sunday morning would be her last chance to come to Toms River to ride out the storm with my family and I. She chose to stay in Hoboken.

When the storm began to strike, the winds were serious, but not hurricane force. In fact, Sandy weakened from a Hurricane to a tropical storm hours before it struck. There was not much rain to speak of. The rain and the wind whipped through the evening, when the water began to rise. Power in the neighborhood went out. The sky was lit by exploding transformers in the distance like it was the 4th of July.

The water kept rising. My family and the neighbors across the street retreated to our next-door neighbors house, which was the highest and had a natural-gas generator (and a Sprint 4G hotspot!).

The water rose to the top of the pilings on our dock. Our boat was raised to its highest level. The boat was tied to the lift so it wouldn’t float away.

Barnegat Bay Storm Surge, October 29, 2012

As we went to bed, the water rose to the bottom of the natural gas generator, which shut off. Neighborhood cars honked through the night as the rising salt water destroyed their electronics. The next morning, I did not know what to expect.

Goose Creek, Barnegat Bay, October 30, 2012

The water was higher than I could have imagined. Many boats in my neighborhood floated off of their lifts and were strewn about the bay. Large pieces of deck furniture and pieces of houses were floating freely. I swam in the cold water to retrieve my parents deck furniture, despite their assurances that it would be covered by insurance (hint – it wouldn’t have been). An old Kawasaki Jet-Ski floated through the neighborhood.

For two days, we were prisoners in the neighborhood. Thankfully, my industrious neighbor started the gas generator. The water did not begin to recede until later the next day.

Sandy Place, Toms River, October 30, 2012

Once the water receded, the cleanup began. Over 4-months have past, and there is still much visible damage to the area.

There is still a few months before the boating season begins. However, I am afraid that once boaters take to the waters this spring, they will run an increased risk of striking some underwater hazards from the storm. I recently came across a photograph on Facebook of a car being hoisted out of the Barnegat bay under the Mathis/ Tunney Bridge.

In December, the Asbury Park Press ran a story about the problem of storm debris throughout the bay. The article states that there are “a couple of hundred” of boats sitting on marshes and shorelines.

The article also states that the depth of the bay may be altered in some areas. As experienced boaters know, the bay is already very shallow in many areas. It is unknown what condition the channels will be in, or what now lays beneath those channels.

The New Jersey Department of Transportation will oversee the bay cleanup. Earlier this month, it was announced that a contract was awarded to dredge the bay.

CrowderGulf, the Alabama company that will dredge the bay said that it will use sonar and other technologies to locate debris and remove it. Until this dredging is completed, boaters should be extremely cautious about operating their boat in the bay. In early spring, I recommend staying out of the water. If you do go out, proceed slowly in the channels close to where your boat is kept. If you see debris, remove it if you can.