1400 sunken boats in Barnegat Bay

Alex F said:
Here's some good news: http://www.dredgingtoday.com/2013/01/14/usa-barnegat-bay-cleanup-about-to-begin/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DredgingToday+%28Dredging+Today+-++The+industry%27s+ground-breaking+news+provider%29
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not be be a cinical, but the artical says: "About to Begin" I don't have a high level of confidence that much will happen... The Bay will begin to freeze this week and contracts and environmental approvals take time...
 
I was at the Marina in Waretown last week and was talking to a guy that made over 20 trips north of the bridge and back south to waretown. He said south of the bridge is navigable to waretown if you keep to the channel, I can live with that. Looks like 2013 will be Marina to Tices shoal and back for us. I'm not looking to buy a new set of props. I'm not complaining, I'm sure many folks around there wish they had these problems.
 
dicor said:
I was at the Marina in Waretown last week and was talking to a guy that made over 20 trips north of the bridge and back south to waretown. He said south of the bridge is navigable to waretown if you keep to the channel, I can live with that. Looks like 2013 will be Marina to Tices shoal and back for us. I'm not looking to buy a new set of props. I'm not complaining, I'm sure many folks around there wish they had these problems.
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Thanks for the update... saw a funny thing yesterday... A sea plane landed in the water near us... I rearly see sea planes in the barnegat... Not sure what he was doing...

Dicor, when do you plan on begining to use your boat? I think I might wait a bit this year unitil after Memorial Day to start boating... I don't want to be the one finding the sunken treasures....
 
rcknecht said:
not be be a cinical, but the artical says: "About to Begin" I don't have a high level of confidence that much will happen... The Bay will begin to freeze this week and contracts and environmental approvals take time...
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Rod,

I was down at my marina a couple of weeks ago. They had lots of erosion and substantial damage to the eastern most seawalls. The manager informed me that he already got the federal approval to rebuild. He stated that he received these in 2 weeks when it usually takes 2 years! I believe this is being streamlined by the Feds due to the federal disaster designation.
So, you may see approvals much quicker in your neck of the woods than your used to.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
[h=3]New Jersey coast update[/h][h=4]Reported By: Carol Pierini, Cruising Editor ((WG Staff))[/h]
Reconstruction on Raritan Bay is slow but underway. Army Corps is going to be working around Sandy Hook and throughout Raritan Bay as there are many sunken vessels that are located daily. Many are missing from marinas along the bay. Atlantic Highlands harbor is still iffy for opening this spring...more later. Great Kills harbor is iffy as well, although the State Marina will be rebuilding with an influx of state money.
In Perth Amboy, Raritan Yacht Club is holding open houses to update people on the status of the waterfront, marinas, and Raritan Bay. There will be speakers at each gathering and the first one will be Mayor Diaz of Perth Amboy. Waterfront committees have been established. Slow going as permits are needed, funding is needed, and waters need to be surveyed.
The shore area south of Bay Head is still off bounds. The devastation around the Manasquan Inlet is not to be believed -- the water came over the inlet banks and affected every business and structure; however, the good news is that they all seem to have signs saying "We will be back Spring 2013." The NJICW is a mess with houses, boats and debris everywhere.
The biggest issue for boaters is the lack of dockage. Marinas in NY and NJ with damage will not be able to provide slips for everyone this year. Look for updates to come.
 
You can watch this video to see what the NJ coast looks like starting from the Mantoloking Bridge south to Normandy. Camera footage isnt the best at the beginning, but the guy finaly switches to landscape mode after a few minutes for a bigger picture. At one point in the film, you will see a house with back wall missing and clothes hanging in the closet. I drove past that house 2 weeks ago and the house is sitting on the road with the clothes still blowing in the wind. Pretty depressing video.

[video=youtube;hbbKxIeofuQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbbKxIeofuQ&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
I believe that in the coming months, we're going to see just how quickly things can get done when government (at all 3 levels) gets the hell out of the way.

As for navigation, local knowledge is going to be key. Fisherman will not be stopped and they are going to be our greatest resource, esp with regards to the inlets. The fishermen were out there just as soon as the water cops allowed them to be. Get to know the guy in your marina with outriggers and rocket-launchers!

A "Notice to Mariners" thread here should at some point be started.
 
Vince_nj1 said:
You can watch this video to see what the NJ coast looks like starting from the Mantoloking Bridge south to Normandy. Camera footage isnt the best at the beginning, but the guy finaly switches to landscape mode after a few minutes for a bigger picture. At one point in the film, you will see a house with back wall missing and clothes hanging in the closet. I drove past that house 2 weeks ago and the house is sitting on the road with the clothes still blowing in the wind. Pretty depressing video.

[video=youtube;hbbKxIeofuQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbbKxIeofuQ&feature=youtu.be[/video]
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Thanks Vince, It is a real mess, I can't see things getting back to the new normal for 2 to 3 years. As far a boating is concerned, I plan on goin slow and praying...
 
Vince,

WOW, what a devastation. How old is this video? I heard that they filled the new inlet, but the video shows otherwise. If the video is only been taken within past month, then I agree with Rod that we won't see things back to normal for 2-3 years.
 
Absolutely heart breaking. No mater how many times I see pics of the devestation sandy left behind it just takes my breath away everytime. Really helps you respect the power of water. I realy hope all those people are strong enough to r ebuild and move on. Wish all of you that were affected th best of luck and keep your heads up. It only gets better .
 
Alex F said:
Vince,

WOW, what a devastation. How old is this video? I heard that they filled the new inlet, but the video shows otherwise. If the video is only been taken within past month, then I agree with Rod that we won't see things back to normal for 2-3 years.
Click to expand...

Alex, I am not sure when that video was taken, but I would place it about 1 to 2 weeks after Sandy. I was in that area 3 weeks ago, (12 weeks post Sandy?) and it pretty much looked the same. I wasn’t there long. Fire trucks came blazing past me and the police turned everyone over just south of Brick beach and sent us back North. There appeared to be a gas leak. The smell was pretty strong.
At that time, the houses out in the bay were still there, there were houses thrown all over the island with piles of debris where homes use to sit. I could see that the lagoons on the bay side were filled with sand. Some boats were stuck behind their houses with no way out until the lagoon is dredged. The big difference from that video was that the inlet was closed off and the was a steel sea wall, (similar to what you would see passing through the Point Pleasant canal), at the base of the Mantoloking bridge running along Rt35 where homes used to sit.

I am not as optimistic as Rod about how long the recovery will take. There are a few significant things that occurred post Sandy that will significantly change Barnegat Bay (as well as pleanty of other water front communities).
The Biggert Waters act was signed into law in July 201, which starts a 5 year process of the Federal Government exiting the Flood insurance subsidy game. That step will drive up flood insurance costs for a typical home on the bay from $500 to $2500 a year.

Then in December FEMA issued new advisory flood maps for Coastal NJ. http://fema.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=2f0a884bfb434d76af8c15c26541a545
These maps would require most homes to be raised as much as 5 ft. Failure to do that would drive insurance costs to maybe $12,000 to $15,000 a year. As bad as that sounds, it gets worse!

These new Advisory flood maps have changed the ratings on most properties from an AE to “V”. That rating was normally only used for Ocean front property. Now almost every home on a lagoon on Barnegat Bay has a “V” rating. In order to comply with a “V” rating, concrete blocks cannot be used as a foundation. The foundation has to allow water to pass under it. This usually means using pilings. Failure to raise your house 5 feet and install a new foundation using pilings, will drive the cost of flood insurance to $30,000 per year.

And guess what? You can not raise your house and install pilings because the house needs to come of the lot to allow heavy equipment to come in a drive the pilings. The recommended solution is to knock down your house and rebuild it.
 
I have heard that you can remove the roof to drive pilings but not sure how much better an alternative that is. I still feel that when the public gets wind of these extreme requirements, they are going to wind up easing them. At least that's what I hope. If not people are going to be bailing on these properties and values will plummet, which is not good for the state or national economy.
 
Vince,
Fortunately for me I remained in the A flood plain, but the end of my street is in the V. My house is built on pilings, but they are buried underground and I have a cement foundation... My house is the newest on my street, and I am the only house that will not have to be raised to meet the new height requirement. In talking with my neighbors, most plan on dropping their flood insurance because they have paid off mortgages. One factor is FEMA won't pay to raise your home unless it is flooded twice, and Sandy was our first flood. What I see as the impact, especially for my neighbors in the V flood plain, is if they try to sell their homes, only all cash buyers will be able to afford their homes because of the $2K+ per month flood insurance. As far as driving pilings through homes, it can be done, but for most it is not worth doing.

I expect that people will continue to live in their homes as is, and when they go to sell they will only get the value of the lot it sits on...
 
Rod

There are plenty of people that still have mortgages on their homes. They will be required by the bank to maintain flood insurance. Many will not be able to afford it and the banks will have to foreclose on their houses to recover the loan balance. This will create more vacant homes, depress the property values even further and drive up real estate taxes.

I have to beleive that common sense will prevail and the "V" ratings assigned to homes on lagoons will be rolled back to AE. Only if that happens will people be able to attempt to raise their homes and retain their property.
 
Vince,

For the reasons you mentioned I don't think that this will be put in the law just as a plain vanilla. If I understood correctly, FIMA's map and corrective action is only a recommendation. We have enough economical and real estate issues. Adding this new requirement on top of the pile will only a dig a bigger whole, which no one wants. I guess, we'll just have to wait and see the actual outcome and what gets passed in to new law.
 
Alex

Gov Christie held a press conference last week and announced this:


On January 24, 2013, Governor Christie announced that the State is adopting the recently released FEMA Advisory Base Flood Elevation maps as a DEP Standard. The Governor did this by emergency rule effective immediately. FEMA expects to proceed with adopting these advisory maps as final maps; however, this process will take 18 to 24 months. Therefore, the Governor determined to adopt these advisory maps as the State standard immediately.


Hard to believe, but that is the current situation.

http://articles.philly.com/2013-01-31/news/36637990_1_floodplain-flood-insurance-federal-maps


Now the burden is on the property owners to fight to fix it
 
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