Beach Nourishment is a Fascinating Process to Watch!

Everyone was excited and a bit nervous about guest reaction to the Beach Nourishment in the Town of Nags Head. I, for one, have become addicted to monitoring the process. I plan to attend the progress meeting at the Town of Nags Head tomorrow morning at the Fire Station.



I am always amazed at what men and machines can create. The dredging company is from the Great Lakes area and has traveled all over the world, including Dubai. Not sure that they created the “Palm Tree” islands but they have sure done pretty amazing work here.

They began in the Nags Head area, near milepost 15.75 at Forbes Street in the Forbes Candy shop area. They placed a T section of pipe on the beach and headed north. The hopper dredge travels out to the “goldmine of sand” a few miles off the coast, sucks the sand up into the hopper in the vessel, then returns to shore and pushes the sand through pipes on the bottom of the ocean through the T pipe and then north or south through a pipe parallel to the dune line. As one area is filled up, another section of pipe is added and the process continues. After they go a certain distance north, they pull up the pipe, return to the T section and proceed south.


There is an engineering machine called “The Crab” that is about 20-30 feet tall, has 3 legs with huge rubber wheels, that travels along the beach and out into the ocean to measure the height, and “lay” of the sand that is projected onto and spread along the shore. As the project moves up the beach, workers go out into the ocean, literally up to their chests and necks, and place survey type poles into the water as a “guide” as to where to extend the sand and to what height. That is amazing to see, waves breaking on survey poles where tomorrow there will be an extended beach.

When the sand first comes through the pipes it is of course full of water and looks like ocean water, but after a few minutes the sand starts to flow and actually puddles up onto the shore. After the sand is pumped, the dozers begin to push the sand into designated locations. This process continues 24 hours per day. At night, there are large panels of lights set out which light the beach up like a baseball field.


Believe it or not, MOST guests have not called to complain, even when it was in their front yard. I have had only 4 groups of guest who have been “very unhappy.” The contractors have made the process very “guest friendly.” The ocean front direct beach accesses from homes and from the public beach accesses are open and the guests may go on the beach and walk parallel to the ocean and dune lines to a beach area that is not roped off. This is usually a reasonable distance.


The project moves very quickly and is only behind 5 – 6 homes for a day, two days at max. There are exceptions, however. The dredge had a generator go bad last week and was down for a few days, so some guests had the blocked off area in their front yards for 3-4 days. That is the exception.

Another dredge is coming to the far South Nags Head area and is to begin pumping today. My understanding from talking with some of the crew is that this second dredge will operate as a true dredge which has pipes directly to the sand mine and will pump to shore without moving back and forth.

The dredging company figures out obstacles along the way. Last week they ran into a “hole” in the beach area at about milepost 16 and because it was taking longer to fill, they decided to split the pipe into a fork and have 2 pipes extending south toward the new Jennette’s Pier. That allowed for more sand to be spread in a wider area from dune to ocean. That also reduced pushing time for the dozers. These guys are real pros, great problem solvers.

When the project reached Jennette’s Pier, you should have seen the guests hovering at the edge of the pier watching the process. It really has been a learning experience for everyone. Many of our guests share their stories about beach nourishment with us when they are checking out. It is well worth visiting one of the 2 sites while you are here this summer. And by the way, the sand is “beautiful, a perfect match to what was there.”


I am a beach nourishment “geek”. Man working with Nature, what an Awesome sight!