Winds and Big Waves Leave Hurricane-Like Damage : Carolinas, Lake Shores Take a Beating

Estimates of damage to beachfront property rose into the millions of dollars Tuesday, after wind-whipped high tides lashed the coastline of the Carolinas like a hurricane. In the Great Lakes area, lakefront residents mopped up after waves rose to 25 feet.

“Our pool just split down the middle and fell on the beach,” said Mike Frederick, manager of a motel in Garden City, S.C. “I always thought something like this would happen during a hurricane.”

“It’s awesome to walk outside one day and see your trees crumbling into the ocean,” said Jennifer Van Wie of Myrtle Beach, S.C. She said the waves had taken away at least 10 feet of her property.

Gusty wind continued to blow Tuesday over parts of the Great Lakes region, but the wind had shifted direction after inundating the east-facing shores.

Ready to Evacuate

Along the East Coast, the danger of flooding shifted northward Tuesday. Officials in the fishing village of Bowers, Del., were preparing an evacuation plan just in case, Fire Chief Bryan Jackson said.

Wind gusting to 45 m.p.h. pushed waves as high as 7 1/2 feet above normal Tuesday along the southern New Jersey coast. Some roads and bridges to coastal islands were closed for short periods, but no evacuations were necessary, authorities said.

Damage in the North Carolina resort town of Topsail Beach was estimated at $5 million. “If anything, it’s a good conservative estimate,” Town Manager Tony Caudle said. “We have people who have lived here for several years and they haven’t seen it this bad, even with some hurricanes.”

In South Carolina, flooding brought on by 25 m.p.h. winds and tides two feet above normal caused damage estimated at $2 million along the state’s Grand Strand of beach resorts, said Patrick Dowling, public information officer for Myrtle Beach.

The high surf near Myrtle Beach damaged seawalls and undermined swimming pools at more than half a dozen condominiums, motels and hotels, officials said.

Beach Washes Away

On Hilton Head Island near Georgia, the waves took six feet of beach, crumbled a wall and loosened decking.

Along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, which was two feet above normal, crews on Chicago’s North Shore continued banking sandbags and concrete highway dividers in front of some high-rise buildings that face the water.

Some garages and first-floor apartments were flooded, and geologist Charles Collinson of the Illinois State Geological Society said the pounding of the waves already had begun cracking some walls and washing away fill behind some sea walls. The water also was threatening to short out underground electrical vaults at some buildings.

Pounding Shakes Buildings

Margaret Skora said she felt the vibrations from the water in her third-floor apartment on the inland side of a 26-story building.

Water receded Tuesday in eastern Michigan. Wind-whipped waves as high as 25 feet crashed on the western shores of Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair the day before, topping seawalls and flooding roads and homes.

Nearly two inches of snow fell Tuesday in Rochester, N.Y., and snowfall was measured at four inches in Livingston County, N.Y.

A mixture of snow and sleet glazed roads in northwestern lower Michigan, and both public and private schools in Traverse City were closed.