COASTAL ENGINEERING STUDIES IN SUPPORT OF VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA 

 BEACH EROSION CONTROL AND HURRICANE PROTECTION PROJECT 



SEAWALL OVERTOPPING EVALUATION 



PART I: INTRODUCTION 

 Project Description 



1. The proposed Virginia Beach, Virginia, Beach Erosion Control and 

 Hurricane Protection Project is one of the largest and most complex coastal 

 projects of this type in recent Corps of Engineers experience. The City of 

 Virginia Beach is located on the east coast of the United States just south of 

 the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. The project area consists of 6 miles* of 

 heavily developed commercial and urban shoreline which extends north from 

 Rudee Inlet to 89th Street (Figure 1). This shoreline is subject to severe 

 damages from both hurricanes and extreme extratropical storms as evidenced by 

 the August 1933 hurricane and the March 1962 extratropical storm ("the Ash 

 Wednesday storm") which devastated this coastal area. Storm damages have 

 included loss of the beach, destruction of the bulkhead and seawall system, 

 damage to buildings, and inshore flooding. In addition, there has been a 

 continuing problem with beach erosion. Since 1962 annual harbor dredging of 

 Rudee Inlet and pumping operations to bypass sand at Rudee Inlet, and/or the 

 trucking in of sand from other sources have been sponsored by the Federal, 

 state, and city governments to maintain a beach width of approximately 100 ft 

 with a crest elevation of +5.4 ft. 



2. Existing protection consists of a combination of various bulkheads 

 with crest elevations between 10 and 12 ft National Geodetic Vertical Datum 

 (NGVD) and nourished beach. In 1970 the US Army Engineer District, Norfolk 

 (NAO) , completed a feasibility study which recommended construction of a 

 sheet-pile seawall with a concrete cap at elevation 15 and heavy stone at the 

 base. By 1983, results of the previous study had been reevaluated and incor- 

 porated into an initial (Phase I) seawall design and beach erosion control 



* A table of factors for converting non-SI to SI (metric) units of measure- 

 ment is presented on page 3. 



