Remember When Sea Bright Used to Flood

Over the weekend, while driving up Ocean Avenue I passed by those new McMansions in Sea Bright where the Tradewinds beach club and bar used to be. The houses, which are still being constructed, certainly look pretty solid. Even though I’m sure those houses are safe, I wonder if the people that are buying know at all what Sea Bright used to be like before all of the sand was pumped on the beach. I distinctly remember going down to Sea Bright after a big Nor-easter and seeing giant boulders and logs in and around the north parking lot of Tradewinds. Before the sand was pumped on the beach in front of Tradewinds, and elsewhere, the waves on a normal non-stormy day were at the sea wall.

Eventually, the beaches in Sea Bright, and further down the coast, are going to lose sand and the beaches won’t be there to protect the new private property being built on the west side of the wall. Given that the Tradewinds mansions are priced north of $3 million, it doesn’t appear to me that prospective buyers are pricing in the highly likely loss of the protective beach sometime in the next 15 years.

Here is the satellite view of Tradewinds before it was demolished. Before the beach replenishment project the waves went all the way to the sea wall.