Federal rules could let Washington pay to repair the north-end sand the Army Corps' contractor finished pumping Sept. 7, but no agency has said whether the nor'easter's damage qualifies, and after Jonas in 2016, public accounts of who paid for the repair conflicted, including the city's own.

Ocean City's north end got 1.6 million cubic yards of new sand this summer. The Army Corps of Engineers' contractor finished pumping it the night of Monday, Sept. 7, the city said. The contract itself isn't done; the Defense Department's award listing gives it an estimated completion date of Oct. 18.

The city and the Corps don't agree on where that sand ends, and the city has changed its own answer. Its project page said 12th Street in July and "the area around 11th Street" by September. The Corps said 12th Street in its June 1 release, and a Corps contracting notice in March said "current conditions indicate sand will be needed only from the Seaview Road groin to 14th Street." Neither has explained the differences.

Eighteen days after the pumping stopped, Gov. Mikie Sherrill's state of emergency for Cape May and seven other counties took effect at 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25, ahead of a nor'easter.

Who pays to repair any damage to that beach comes down to two sets of federal rules, the Corps' and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's. The Corps' rules let Washington pick up as much as the entire cost of repairing a shore project, but only if the storm and the project pass tests that include storm size, damage and completion. No agency has said publicly how either set of rules applies to Ocean City.

Asked by NJBallot.com on Sept. 28 how the Corps' repair rules apply, Steve Rochette, public affairs officer for the Corps' Philadelphia District, wrote back that night: "We’re still sorting through the initial post-storm work, so I won’t have answers to many of those specific questions in the near term." He said the Corps and the state Department of Environmental Protection are reviewing storm data and checking the beach for erosion this week.

"There was significant erosion to some of the projects completed earlier this year," Rochette said in remarks published the same day that did not name the projects. "The dunes and beaches are sacrificial in nature," he said.

Three governments split the bill

The Corps' Philadelphia District awarded Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. of Houston a $19,493,971 fixed-price contract for the job, according to the Defense Department's May 29 listing. Washington pays 65 percent of construction, the Corps said in announcing the award. New Jersey splits the other 35 percent, 75 percent state and 25 percent local, under the DEP's shore protection program.

Mayor Jay Gillian said in April that the Ocean City work was budgeted at $38 million, with federal and state money covering all but about $3.3 million, the city's share, which he said was already in the city's capital plan and would go into a bond ordinance.

The numbers don't line up neatly. The Corps' 2026 work plan sets aside $25 million to "initiate and complete periodic nourishment and annual monitoring in Ocean City." Neither the Corps nor the city has said how that squares with the mayor's $38 million or the $19,493,971 contract, or what Ocean City paid this year.

A federal repair has to clear several tests

The first question is whether the nor'easter was big enough. The Corps can repair a shore project only after what its rules call an "extraordinary storm": a Category 3 hurricane or stronger, or a storm at least as severe as the one the project was designed to handle. The Corps hasn't said what storm Ocean City's beach was designed for.

The city's tide table puts this storm's peak at 7.63 feet above mean low water on Saturday, Sept. 26, when every bridge into town was closed. That is behind several earlier storms, including Jonas, the January 2016 nor'easter, at 7.75 feet.

The second question is damage. The rules count it as significant if the repair would cost more than $6 million, not counting the cost of moving dredges in and out, or more than $1 million and more than 2 percent of the project's original cost in today's dollars. It also counts if the storm took "more than one-third of the planned or historically placed sand."

The rule doesn't say whether that means the 1.6 million cubic yards pumped this summer or the roughly 1.1 million the design calls for every three years, according to the Corps, and the Corps hasn't said which it would use. No agency has published a measurement of what the storm did to the new beach.

The third question is whether the project was finished in the rule's sense. The Corps won't repair "uncompleted" projects, and it counts one as complete only after handing it to its state partner, here the DEP, "for operation and maintenance." The Corps hasn't said whether that handoff happened before the storm, and the public record doesn't show it.

Past Corps contracts for this beach, in 2017 and 2022, said the builder "will not be required to recommence beachfill operations in the event of erosion and/or storm damage" on finished stretches. The 2026 specifications don't appear in public federal contracting records.

FEMA generally stays out when another agency can act

Under its own rules, FEMA generally withholds disaster aid when another federal agency has "specific authority to restore facilities damaged or destroyed" in a declared major disaster. Asked by NJBallot on Sept. 28 how that applies here, FEMA's regional office referred questions about New Jersey's damage assessment and any aid request to the state.

Sherrill said Sept. 29 that federal help remained on the table, though the state had not yet asked for it. U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., said Sept. 28 that FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton was expected to visit the district late this week.

The last repair left conflicting accounts

Ocean City has been here before, and how it played out then goes to the questions the city faces now: whether the Corps treats storm damage as a federal repair, and who ends up paying. The Corps' contractor finished re-sanding the north end on Dec. 21, 2015, the city says. Jonas hit Jan. 23, 2016. The city's tide table entry for that storm reads, in part: "Storm erodes newly replenished beaches at Ocean City's northern end."

The city asked the Corps and the state to come back and replace the lost sand "with or without federal and state funding," according to a city web page. The Corps did. In July 2017 it put out bids for a north-end job titled a "Flood Control & Coastal Emergency (FCCE) Repair," borrowing the name of the Corps account that pays for disaster work. Great Lakes won the contract that September, federal contracting records show.

Who paid is where the record splits, and the city is on both sides of it. In July 2017, Gillian told residents the job "comes at no cost to the city" and would be "funded entirely by the Federal Emergency Management Agency." That fall, as work began, the city's website described the usual cost split instead, with Ocean City covering a quarter of the state's 35 percent, according to a local report that put the job at $13.4 million and the city's piece at about $1.2 million. Federal contract records show $13,165,340.75 committed to the contract but don't name the account that paid it, and the city did not answer NJBallot's question this week about who paid for the post-Jonas sand.

This time, Ocean City is earlier in that process. Gillian said Sept. 28 that it was "too preliminary to assess beach erosion." No agency has said whether this storm meets the federal repair rules, and the city hasn't said publicly whether it has asked the Corps to come back, as it did after Jonas.

"Army Corps does not typically step in to implement short-term repairs of beaches, nor does the DEP directly implement short-term repairs," Caryn Shinske, a DEP spokesperson, said in November 2025. "Local communities, working with the DEP under local beach maintenance projects, are responsible for these repairs."

Gillian credited the new sand with holding the line. "Thanks in large part to our recent replenishment project, the ocean did not breach our dune system at any point," he wrote Sept. 28. "Without that, damage to property could have been substantial."

"The real shame is that we just finished a $20 million beach replenishment," said Robin Shaffer, a north-end resident. "So much of that sand was washed away by this storm."

The DEP has said its survey of the state's ocean beaches should be out by the end of this week. Neither the DEP nor the city responded to NJBallot's questions by the 3 p.m. deadline on Tuesday, Sept. 29. No agency has announced when the north end will get its next round of sand.

Steve Hafner, a research scientist at Stockton University's Coastal Research Center, put the risk plainly. "If there is insufficient time for sand to move naturally back on shore from the offshore bars in between storms, the vulnerability increases and impacts will be intensified," he said.

Related Articles

Eight N.J. Counties Under Emergency Order as Nor'easter Peaks Sunday (September 26, 2026)

Storms Batter Sussex County, Across New Jersey; Outages Stretch into Monday (July 6, 2026)

NJ Braces for Major Nor'easter Amid Widespread Salt Shortages (February 21, 2026)

Sources

• 6abc, "New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill surveys nor'easter storm damage" (September 29, 2026).
• Cherry Hill Courier-Post, "Congressman says FEMA, DEP in South Jersey to survey nor'easter damage" (September 28, 2026), as republished by the Press of Atlantic City.
• Municipal (City of Ocean City, New Jersey), "Beach Replenishment Update," July 7, 2026 version (Internet Archive capture).
• Municipal (City of Ocean City, New Jersey), "Beach Replenishment Update" (September 8, 2026).
• Municipal (City of Ocean City, New Jersey), "Capital Projects: Beach" page (undated).
• Municipal (City of Ocean City, New Jersey), "Historic Tide Table" (undated; accessed September 28, 2026).
• Jay Gillian, Mayor of Ocean City, "Mayor's Update on Post-Storm Cleanup" (September 28, 2026).
• Federal (Code of Federal Regulations), Title 33, Part 203 (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers emergency and rehabilitation rules), §§ 203.49 and 203.82.
• Federal (Code of Federal Regulations), Title 44, Part 206, § 206.226 (Federal Emergency Management Agency Public Assistance).
• Federal (Congressional Research Service), "U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: Supplemental Appropriations," R48572 (June 16, 2025).
• Federal (Federal Emergency Management Agency), news release HQ-26-111, "Cameron Hamilton Confirmed as New FEMA Administrator" (August 10, 2026).
• Federal (Federal Emergency Management Agency), Region 2 External Affairs, email reply to NJBallot.com (September 29, 2026).
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• OCNJ Daily, "Beach Replenishment Project Begins for Ocean City's North End" (October 24, 2017).
• Patch Ocean City, "Beach Replenishment Project A Year Ahead Of Schedule In Ocean City: Mayor" (July 7, 2017), reprinting Mayor Jay Gillian's Mayor's Update.
• Patch Ocean City, "Ocean City Details Beach Replenishment, Boardwalk Work And Bay Plans" (April 14, 2026).
• Press of Atlantic City, "THE WORST SINCE SANDY?" (September 28, 2026).
• State (State of New Jersey), Executive Order No. 25, Governor Mikie Sherrill (September 25, 2026).
• Federal (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), Fiscal Year 2026 Construction Work Plan (Fiscal Year 2026).
• Federal (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District), solicitation W912BU-17-B-0007, "Flood Control & Coastal Emergency (FCCE) Repair Beach Nourishment, Great Egg Harbor Inlet and Peck Beach, Ocean City, NJ," with specifications (July 14, 2017), SAM.gov.
• Federal (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District), beachfill specifications, Section 35 31 00, 2022 contract for the Great Egg Harbor Inlet and Peck Beach project (2022).
• Federal (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Philadelphia District), contracting notice W912BU26B1BCI (March 5, 2026), SAM.gov.
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• WHYY, "Federal funding freeze stalls New Jersey beach replenishment projects" (November 24, 2025).
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Photo: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2012 (Public Domain)