Carolina Environmental Diversity Explorations
Hurricanes on sandy shorelines · By Dirk Frankenberg
Beach accretion
Figure 13. Sand has covered the bottom two steps of this house. (Photograph by the author. More about the photograph)
Figure 13 shows some more of the sand that was eroded off the Oak Island beach by Hurricane Floyd. It is a little hard to see, but if you look at the base of the stairs leading down from the deck of this house, you will see that sand covers at least the two bottom steps. That sand has accreted to the beach since the steps were built and certainly since the hurricane washed away the dune that preceded the artificial one that was built by bulldozers immediately after the hurricane.
The flat beach area in front of the new dune is a natural feature called a berm. Its existence here is evidence that the process of beach accretion is going on as usual. Beachfront homeowners, though, are not always willing to wait while natural accretion restores their beach.
