OCEAN SHORES, Wash. — Residents of Ocean Shores are dealing with a double whammy: they’re under an emergency proclamation following last week’s storm, and now, there’s a boil water advisory, which is unrelated to the storms.
Fueled by storms and high tides, waves are pounding at the shoreline, breaking it apart.
“We’ve lost in the last four days somewhere between 50 feet, 40, 50 feet somewhere in there in width,” said Marshall Reed. “And then we’ve lost probably 15 feet in elevation,” he said, pointing to the waves crashing into the backyards of homes along Marine View Drive.
Reed is the lead planner and shoreline administrator for the City of Ocean Shores. She is leading a team that’s dropping boulders along the shoreline, replacing smaller “cobble” that floated away.
The ever-advancing ocean is threatening about two dozen homes, including a woman named Kim.
“It’s coming all the way up. It’s eating away the land; it’s eroding,” Kim said.
She says she and other at-risk homeowners are allowing city crews to build a rock wall on their property to hold back the waves.
The emergency proclamation Mayor Frank Elduen issued Nov. 9 frees up resources to do so quickly, but Marshall says they’re in for a long fight.
“Typically, once we start into the winter storm season, it’s sometime in March before we really take a breath.”
Adding to the city’s challenges, a construction crew on an unrelated project broke a water main. It’s now fixed, but Kim and other Ocean Shores residents will have to drink bottled water – or boil their tap water – until city tests show the water system is clean.
She takes it in stride. “It’s just part of everyday life, living down at the beach. Things just happen, and we’ve just got to go with the flow.
While shoring up the shoreline will take months, tests on the city’s water supply are expected to be in by late Saturday morning.
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