An Ocean City Public Works crew, a military surplus truck and a little bit of ingenuity and urgency helped move a Coast Guard navigational buoy off the beach at the north end of the island last week.
The buoy had broken free from its mooring in a northeast gale on Sept. 9. It washed ashore on the beach on the Great Egg Harbor Inlet near the Ocean City-Longport Bridge. And with another coastal storm bearing down on Ocean City last week, the city asked the Coast Guard if it could move the buoy off the beach before the second storm hit and potentially set the buoy afloat again.
The Coast Guard, in turn, asked the city if it could help.
An Ocean City field operations crew went down to the beach and, using a military surplus truck that the city had modified, moved the buoy to high and dry spot in the parking lot near the bridge. The Ocean City Fire Department had helped the city acquire eight trucks at no cost through a government surplus program in 2013.
A crane and trailer are expected to be here this week to take the buoy back by land to the Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team in Cape May for rehabilitation. The Coast Guard cutter Elm, a buoy tender, will then return the buoy to its home marking the channel through the inlet.
