A winter nor’easter flooded streets, closed schools and eroded beaches on Tuesday in Ocean City, but with the rain and wind subsiding before a Tuesday morning high tide, the island escaped major damage.
Heavy rain fell overnight and strong northeast winds churned up stormy surf that pounded at Ocean City beaches.
The Ocean City School District put out a call early Tuesday canceling classes at all schools. While all three school building remained high and dry through the storm, the district was concerned that bus routes and bus stops would be flooded.
The rain began to fade shortly after dawn and stopped long before a 9:41 a.m. high tide on the bay side of Ocean City, when forecasters had predicted the worst tidal flooding.
Large stretches of Simpson and Haven avenues were completely underwater, and parts of Bay and West avenues were covered. The north-south thoroughfares closer to the beach were passable, but trips to and from the bay side were possible only on select streets — as is customary in a handful of flooding events each year in Ocean City.
In Merion Park, where new pumping stations designed to alleviate nuisance flood are expected to be operational soon, residents had to move cars to higher ground near Roosevelt Boulevard as they often do.
The outbound lanes of the Route 52 causeway were closed for a couple hours due to flooding at the foot of the Ninth Street Bridge near Bay Avenue.
Beaches across the length of Ocean City took a hit from the storm as the northeast swell pounded at dunes and created small sand cliffs.
Posts and sand fencing at the south end of the island were toppling as the waves ate into the protective sand berm near 57th Street on Tuesday morning. The Army Corps of Engineers is expected within the next few days to announce a schedule for a beach replenishment project there.
The tide gauge at the Bayside Center on the bay between Fifth and Sixth streets reported a high of 4.52 feet on the NAVD88 scale at 9:48 a.m. Tuesday. By comparison, the tides at the same location were 7.25 feet during Superstorm Sandy on Oct. 29, 2012, 6.35 feet during the Storm of ’62, and 5.25 feet during a memorable nor’easter in November 2009. “Moderate” flooding is considered to start at 3.73 feet on the same scale, “severe” flooding at 4.73 feet.
Read the left column below (NAVD88) for a comparison of Tuesday’s 4.52 feet to historic data.
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