The nor’easter took the sand. Here’s why I’m not calling it a waste.

When I was a kid, you could stand on the Atlantic City Boardwalk and look straight down at the ocean. It was flat from the boards to the water. No dunes. Nothing in the way.

Years later, the dunes went up to protect the boardwalk, the hotels and the casinos. People complained. You couldn't see the beach from the boardwalk anymore.

This week, those dunes got cut in half.

And the boardwalk is still standing.

Millions of dollars of sand, gone in a weekend

This summer, the Army Corps of Engineers pumped 1.86 million cubic yards of sand onto Strathmere and Sea Isle City under a $21.6 million contract. Ocean City got 1.6 million more cubic yards under a $19.5 million contract, according to the Ocean City Sentinel.

Then the nor'easter hit.

In Atlantic City, the storm left cliffs 8 to 10 feet high between the boardwalk and the beach, according to WHYY. Beach Patrol Chief Steve Downey told WHYY it washed away "all, if not pretty much all, of the new sand that they put in between the piers."

That's the part everyone saw. It looks like money floating out to sea.

SEE ALSO: Beach replenishment is futile — so why must we keep doing it?

Beach after replenishment and before the September storm, and the Strathemere homes it protected. 

Look at it this way

A Strathmere local put it better than I could on a community Facebook page this week. Before the replenishment, there were only about four feet of beach between the road and the ocean. Without that new sand, he wrote, "Strathmere, you would have lost homes."

That's the point.

The Army Corps says the same thing, just less emotionally. "The dunes and beaches are sacrificial in nature," spokesperson Steve Rochette told WHYY.

In other words, the sand is supposed to lose. It takes the hit so your house doesn't.

Did it work?

Down the Cape May County coast, officials say yes.

"Thanks in large part to our recent replenishment project, the ocean did not breach our dune system," Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian said, according to OCNJ Daily.

Stockton University Coastal Research Center's Steve Hafner told OCNJ Daily that the projects "helped to reduce property and infrastructure damage from direct wave impacts."

And in Atlantic City? The boardwalk came through undamaged, according to NJTODAY.NEWS.

Where I land

In August, I asked whether beach replenishment is futile. I still think it's a fight we never finish. The ocean always sends the bill.

But this weekend changed how I read that bill.

What washed away wasn't wasted. It was spent, like an insurance policy that paid out.

Those dunes I used to resent for blocking my view of the ocean just did their job. I'll take the view I have now.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 show host Eric Johnson only.