After a night of further heavy winds and high tides, the Environment Agency is battling today (Tuesday) to reinstate the shingle bank at Medmerry beach in Selsey.
A flood warning is still out for the coastline from Chichester Harbour to Selsey Bill and Broad and Earnley Rifes in Selsey which means some flooding is still expected, according to an agency statement.
An 800-metre section of the shingle bank, w
hich provides flood protection to the 2,200 caravan site and 650 hectares of land, was washed away by the storms and high tides yesterday afternoon. Half of the caravan site was flooded and 50 caravans were destroyed.
Environment Agency staff worked through the night to monitor the weather situation with the tides and using bulldozers and excavators to rebuild the defences as much as possible ahead of the high tides. Although there was some flooding on these second high tides, the levels were lower than those of yesterday.
Six bulldozers will be working on the beach throughout the day to push up the shingle that is currently there. Once the weather settles and the water levels have gone down, shingle will be imported to reprofile the beach.
Environment Agency Solent & South Downs Area Manager James Humphrys said: "The Environment Agency is already working with local communities who live along this very fragile coastline to determine how we manage it into the future.
"All of our research suggests that a realignment of defences inland in a managed way is the right thing to do. This would reduce the risk of flooding to people with the added benefit of less maintenance required.
"It is of little surprise that a storm of the intensity we saw yesterday, together with the high tides, caused this flooding. The shingle is kept in place year on year only because of our extensive and very costly maintenance programme.
"This is a very exposed and low lying coastline, and we expect large winter storms to cause breaches.
"The cost of replacing the shingle following yesterday's storm will run into hundreds of thousands of pounds and there are no guarantees that we won't see a repeat of this storm event in the near future, causing it all to be lost again."
The Environment Agency, with Chichester and Arun district councils, is working with communities along this part of the coastline to consider options for managing flood risk and coastal erosion over the next 100 years. The next stage of formal consultations on the options will start this spring.
