Engineers Discuss Beach Re-Nourishment Following Damage From Nor’Easter

OCEAN CITY, Md. – After the powerful nor’easter left the beaches of Ocean City with severe erosion and dune damage, engineers are coming together to discuss re-nourishment and beautification plans.

Brad Parks is the city engineer for the Town of Ocean City, and explained that the location and duration of the storm caused significant damage.

“It’s not every day you can have a nor’easter just sit right, almost essentially on top of us, and just off the shore here.” Said Parks. “And just continuously push 40, 50 knot winds in our direction.”

The U.S Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, and Ocean City Engineering Department met along the eroded beach, to assess the area following the $25.7 million contract for re-nourishing the beach following the storm.

Leon Skinner is an Emergency Management Specialist for the USACE Baltimore District, and explained that the first step, is inspecting storm damage.

“So the biggest thing is just to assess where we’re at now, work with the city to make sure that all these efforts align, so that we can make sure that we mitigate the risks associated with the impact.” Said Skinner.

Although the team works on re-nourishment projects every four years, the upcoming work is focused on the recent erosion. The project aims to restore the engineered beach berm, which is a wide elevated sandy surface in front of the dunes that combats storm surges and flooding.

“It should make it much better.” Said Skinner. “You know, the re-nourishment cycle is going to get that profile beach back out to where it’s going to be, you know, very, amenable to recreation.We’re delivering projects, not paperwork.”

USACE Baltimore District said that crews will begin work late 2026 to early 2027, and plan to wrap up ahead of Memorial Day 2027.