Wooden bulkheads and concrete seawalls are all we need. Piles of sand are expensive, ugly and useless.

FROM SETH GROSSMAN INTERVIEW ON HARRY HURLEY RADIO PROGRAM:

WPG Talk Radio 95.5 FM and 1450AM near Atlantic City on September 30, 2026

Harry Hurley:  All right, citizen Seth Grossman is here, because while everybody's thinking that the flooding happens because of the ocean, there are those who believe it's happening at the back bay. So that the bulkheads, not the dunes, are your more rightful protection, if you will.

Seth Grossman:  People who say that sand dunes protected Atlantic City and Margate from more severe flooding during the storm last weekend remind me of my Dad telling me about when he was stationed in Atlantic City for a few weeks during the early days of World War II. He told me he had to guard the boiler room of the St. Charles Hotel at New Jersey Avenue and the Boardwalk with a wooden rifle. My Dad told me that in 1942, the army did not have enough real rifles to go around. So I said, "Dad, Why did they give you a wooden rifle? What good was it?" My Dad smiled and said, "It worked just fine! The Germans never came near the place!"

I think of my Dad's wooden rifle when people tell me how we needed sand dunes to protect beach towns like Atlantic City and Margate from ocean flooding last weekend.

Let's start by talking about how we those wooden bulkheads and concrete seawalls along the beach and Boardwalk from the Inlet in Atlantic City all the way down to Longport.

Above Image:  Margate, NJ Beach and Elephant Shortly After 1944 Hurricane.

In 1944, we had a devastating hurricane in Atlantic City. It wiped out the old Heinz Pier, the Margate Boardwalk, and it did a lot of damage all over the island.

Harry Hurley: Yep.

Seth Grossman: And in response to that, Atlantic City—with no federal aid, and no state aid other than money from a new local luxury tax--built those wooden bulkheads and concrete seawalls all along the Boardwalk. And of course, it wasn't just that Hurricane of 1944. Before that, the old-timers would talk about the northeaster of 1938, which knocked out the Brigantine Bridge. That is how a guy called Captain Starn made a fortune taking people back and forth from Brigantine. And that's how he got the money to do a lot of his improvements at the Captain Starn's Restaurant that a lot of us Boomers went to growing up.

Above Image: Margate NJ Beach and Elephant Shortly After "Superstorm Sandy" in 2012. There were no sand dunes at the time and little, if any flooding from the ocean.

We grew up with those wooden