New River Inlet - Hurricane Florence - Before/After
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Hurricane Florence was said to be “The Storm of a Lifetime”. With that being said it had a major impact on the South East Coast of North Carolina. Just before the storm came a shore we went out to several different locations on Topsail Island including New River Inlet and documented what the beach looked like before the storm Sept. 12th, 2018. On Sept 26t, 2018 we were granted access to North Topsail Beach to access the damage caused by the storm. New River Inlet is vital for many local fisherman as well as the Military aboard Camp LeJune. They use this inlet on a daily basis. In previous years the inlet has been very difficult to navigate as it has not been dredged in years. It appears from these aerial shots it seems the hurricane had a little effect on the inlet. If anything it looks like the storm washed some of the sand out of the inlet and made it deeper. On the day we shot the before shots the ocean had a fairly small swell running about 2ft at 14 sec. On the day we shot the after shots there was a much larger swell that was about 5ft at 13 sec. We noticed that the outer sandbar on the Inlet was not breaking so the water depth could be deeper than before the storm but the only way to tell for sure is to go out and check it with a boat.
