PAWLEYS ISLAND — City Council moved Feb. 13 to retain Columbia-based Coastal Science and Engineering for the subsequent three years to watch the city’s seashores following a 2020 seaside renourishment challenge.
The city retained CSE for post-project monitoring in 2021 and 2022 as properly. The allow requires the city to have its seashores monitored for erosion and the challenge’s effectiveness for 5 years after the beginning, City Administrator Daniel Newquist stated.
The work within the $116,870 contract consists of surveys of the seaside and inshore sands that acquired renourishment, plus aerial pictures and annual reviews.
“It is a very helpful report, honestly,” Newquist stated of CSE’s annual reviews on seaside circumstances. “They have been very useful in helping the city with post-storm documentation that we will make the most of for (Federal Emergency Administration Company) functions and such. It is type of, I feel, a logical contract for us to take care of.”
The proposal City Council members thought of on Feb. 13 consists of an add-on job: a post-storm survey after the injury from Hurricane Ian in late September.
CSE’s 2022 annual report drew from an August survey, previous to Hurricane Ian’s landfall close to Georgetown. The report accommodates a quick part on Ian close to its finish, and CSE assessed the seaside within the days following the storm.
CSE Vice President Steven Traynum submitted a report on Ian’s injury to the Pawleys Island seaside on Oct. 6. Traynum’s report discovered that the renourishment challenge “served its function” in defending the island from sustaining even worse injury than it did throughout Ian.
“And not using a challenge, CSE believes many houses alongside the south finish would have been severely broken or collapsed, injury to the street floor of Springs Ave(nue) might have been extreme, and injury would have been a lot higher alongside all areas of the island,” Traynum wrote.
Newquist stated the timing of the 2022 survey work was “crucial” for evaluation of the seaside post-Ian.
“We have to type of put together for the subsequent renourishment and whether or not that should happen sooner slightly than later,” Newquist stated. “Their survey work will actually dictate what sort of outlook we’ve.”
Newquist stated it’s nonetheless too early to inform whether or not renourishment might want to occur before anticipated due to Ian. He famous that emergency renourishment was not beneficial by CSE.
Sand fencing and vegetation put in after the renourishment challenge noticed injury throughout Hurricane Ian, in response to CSE’s 2022 report. Nonetheless, it additionally states that storm water ranges didn’t prime the crests of the renourished sand dunes.
