Sandy Success Story: letting nature recuperate

November 8, 2013, NARRAGANSETT – John Thompson put his schooling to work when he decided to help the destroyed dunes in front of his Sand Hill Cove summer home recover after Sandy. Thompson, utilizing the Army Corps of Engineers’ Shore Protection Manual and Google Earth, and with an emergency permit from the RI Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC), installed snow fencing and watched the dunes recover.

“A year ago, Sandy eroded 35 feet of dune in front of my house,” Thompson said. “I obtained a [CRMC] permit to use snow fencing to rebuild the dune. Having been a [Dr. Jon] Boothroyd student, I knew enough to lay them out in accordance with the Army Corps Shore Protection Manual, and I also used Google Earth to measure how far out to set them parallel to the shore where the dune had been previously.”

Thompson installed the snow fencing – four rows approximately 10 feet apart – in early December, and by February, the sand was already collecting between the spans of fencing, he said.

“Some of that fencing is completely buried now – you can walk over it” he said. “And that’s in a year. You can see there is some healing going on.”

The house, built in 1949 by Thompson’s grandfather, survived Hurricane Carol, and survived Sandy, save some minor exterior damage and the dune loss. And now with the dunes returning, he estimates the snow fencing has helped return approximately 300 cubic yards of sand.

“It buys us time. Every foot of sand buys time,” he said. And Thompson is hopeful that other neighbors in Sand Hill Cove will follow his lead. “It’s good for people to know how to respond to something like this. I wanted people to know how well this remedial approach works.”