The October 12 and 13, 2025 nor’easter hammered Mid-Atlantic beaches with sustained surf, storm surge, and high tides, leaving widespread erosion, scarping (steep vertical cuts in the sand), dune damage, and sand loss. See photos here.
These impacts highlight the losing battle Mid-Atlantic coastal towns are fighting against increased erosion and sea level rise, brought about by climate change. Multiple Mid-Atlantic coastal towns reported significant losses to beaches that had just recently been “renourished” aka, beach fill projects.
These projects are expensive and take time to plan and implement. The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) recently completed a 2.1 million cubic yard beach fill upkeep project stretching from Manasquan Inlet to Barnegat Inlet, New Jersey (covering Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, Toms River, Lavallette, Point Pleasant and Mantoloking). 1 The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) reported minor to major erosion in this area, ensuring that millions of dollars of that project’s $73 million dollar cost, were washed out to sea. 2
NJDEP reported similar erosion impacts for recently finished beach fill projects in the Absecon Island and Long Beach Island area. 3 4 Major erosion was reported at a large beach fill project on the Northside of Indian River Inlet in Delaware. The Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) completed this project earlier this year at a cost of $15 million dollars. 5
Such sand losses happen most winters as large storms pass through the region, with some amount of sand naturally returning in the summer months. But recent trends show requests from coastal towns for beach fill projects speeding up, at the same time that offshore supplies of quality beach sand are becoming more scarce.
Either the available offshore sand will run out, or the cost to deliver it at regular intervals to needy beaches will become too great to bear by local, state, and federal governments. Just this year, federal funding for beach fill projects was severely cut. 6 Between 2023 and 2025, the federal government spent $577.2 million dollars on beach replenishment in New Jersey alone, with State and local authorities contributing another $310 million. 7
The result is a familiar and expensive cycle: dredged offshore sand buys time and protection, but severe storms can redistribute or remove a large portion of that sand almost immediately. Increasing costs and funding constraints make rapid replenishment harder to achieve.
Beaches and dunes act as the first line of defense against storms. When they’re stripped away, homes, roads, and utilities behind them become vulnerable. Once dunes are compromised or flattened, subsequent storms and tides penetrate more easily, accelerating shoreline retreat.
Besides protections, beach and dune ecosystems host critical flora and fauna—nesting sea turtles, shorebirds, dune grasses--patterns of beach narrowing and loss of dune area can disrupt these ecological communities over time. The beach tourism and recreation economy, the majority of the ocean economy in most Mid-Atlantic regions, is completely dependent on attractive, wide beaches.
Ultimately, the increasing impacts from climate change will force Mid-Atlantic coastal towns into impossible choices: Either spend increasingly enormous amounts of taxpayer funds on beach fill projects, build seawalls that will ensure the destruction of any remaining beaches (and the tourism economy that depends on beaches), or start the process of moving back from the coast. None of these choices are politically or financially attractive.
The October 2025 nor’easter was a reminder that these hard choices are on the near horizon. The storm leaves in its wake not just wind and water, but missing sand—and with it, diminished buffers, higher risks, and steeper costs to reclaim what’s been lost.
1. USACE. Manasquan Inlet to Barnegat Inlet Coastal Storm Risk Management Project. Available at: www.nap.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Coastal-Storm-Risk-Management/Manasquan-Inlet-to-Barnegat-Inlet/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
2. NJDEP. Storm Survey Reports. Available at: dep.nj.gov/wlm/drec/ce/coastal-storms/
3. USACE. Absecon Island Storm Damage Reduction. Available at: www.nap.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Coastal-Storm-Risk-Management/Absecon-Island-Storm-Damage-Reduction/
4. USACE. Long Beach Island Storm Damage Reduction. Available at: www.nap.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Coastal-Storm-Risk-Management/Long-Beach-Island-Storm-Damage-Reduction/
5. DNREC. Indian River Inlet North Beach Repair Project. Available at: dnrec.delaware.gov/watershed-stewardship/waterways/ir-north-beach-repair/
6. CBS. Beach replenishment projects in Jersey Shore towns put on hold due to lack of federal funding. Available at: www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/new-jersey-shore-beach-replenishment/
7. Asbury Park Press. Jersey Shore would be mostly gone without beach replenishment. But at what cost? Available at: www.app.com/story/news/local/land-environment/2025/08/05/beach-replenishment-projects-costs-billions-jersey-shore-ocean-high-tide/83652756007/?