As many beaches hit by Superstorm Sandy are ready to reopen, some homes are still uninhabitable.

By the time storm Sandy wound down last fall, it was clear that some of the most popular coastal state park beaches in southern New England were all but destroyed.

In Connecticut and Rhode Island, the storm sent a surge of water so powerful that in places it washed many thousands of cubic yards of sand from beaches into parking lots, park roads and picnic areas.

While parts of New Jersey and New York were hardest hit by the historic storm, coastal damage in southern New England also was enormous. Some of the region's major beaches, like Sherwood Island State Park in Westport and Misquamicut State Beach in Westerly, R.I., took a literal pounding of historic proportions.

At Misquamicut, for example, which is adjacent to the Connecticut border and hugely popular with Connecticut residents, the storm flushed the entire beach into the park's 3,000-space parking lot, leaving it 3 feet deep in sand. What had been the beach was left a scoured, debris-strewn mess.

Robert J. Paquette, chief of Rhode Island's Division of Parks and Recreation, estimated the volume of sand displaced at Misquamicut and adjoining beaches at 100,000 cubic yards.

Since then, in a restoration project that took three months, crews with heavy construction equipment sifted and transported the sand back to the beach.

"There was the publicity that Misquamicut was destroyed," Paquette said. "But it is ready to go. The major work is done. Patrons will see us doing some minor work in coming weeks." About 80 percent of Misquamicut beach-goers come from Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, he said.

Environmental agencies had the winter and spring to work on the beaches, so much of the work is done, although repairs and restoration at some parks will continue for months. Coastal state parks in Connecticut and Rhode Island are open for the traditional Memorial Day summer season kickoff.

As at Misquamicut, crews at Sherwood Island moved tons of sand from picnic areas, parking areas and roads and restored the beach. At East Beach alone crews had to move several thousand cubic yards of sand back to the beach.

Read the original post:

Beaches Make Comeback Seven Months After Sandy