37: The Case of the Missing Beach in West Newport

For decades, the beach in West Newport would occasionally
disappear when storm waves stripped away the sand. In the 1930s,
one storm wiped out the beach and sent several homes to Davy’s
Locker. A later storm wiped out all  the oceanfront houses
between 50th and 55th streets. 


The sand returned for a few decades, but in the early 1960s, the
West Newport beach started to disappear again – and this time,
Mother Nature wasn't giving the sand back. So solutions were
offered – almost all of them completely bananas.

The favorite idea was to build a 1.5-mile-long breakwater from
the Newport Pier to about 60th Street. Other kooky proposals
included the construction of an underwater reef two miles long
and making the sand radioactive so it could be easily traced. The
latter plan actually happened.

With no agreed upon solution, by the late summer of 1968, West
Newport was literally without a beach, and oceanfront homes stood
on the precipice of a crumbling 10-foot-high sand cliff. So
authorities hastily conducted a controversial experiment: place
steel jetties at 40th Street and 44th Street to hold the sand in
place. After promising results, six more jetties–these made of
boulders–were placed from 56th and 28nd Street with the last one
completed in 1973. In West Newport, the beach was back.