Holden Beach Property Owners Association

Get ready to shell out more for taxes!

The Board of Commissioners has approved the Town’s budget for FY ’15-’16, with Commissioners Kyser, Miller, and Martin voting for and Young and Harrington voting against.  You can view the approved budget here and the budget message from the Town Manager here.

• $0.01 for road repairs
• $0.007 for employee salary increases (this is in addition to the 5% merit raises)
• $0.006 to bring the tax rate to revenue neutral due to a decreased overall valuation

When Tropical Storm Ana visited Holden Beach on May 10 she left damaged dunes and a lower beach strand in her wake.  This past week Town Manager David Hewett did a survey of the strand and took these photos to share at the Commissioners’ Meeting.  The photos move from east to west beginning in the 200 block of OBW.

Feel free to share your photos or comments on how your part of the beach is recovering.  You can comment on the article or email us at [email protected].

This image from the 200 block of OBW shows a sand bar appending to the beach. Note the hump of sand to the left of the truck. Town Manager Hewett estimates this at 40′ wide and 3′ tall.

This is the same area of the beach as the previous photo. The photo was taken from the top of the sand bar.

This photo is from approximately the 400 block of OBW and shows the beach strand widening.  The dune escarpment, while still prominent, is softening.

This photo was taken in the 400 block of OBW and shows a shell hash on the strand. The shell hash is indicative of a growing beach.

This visitor was digging between 550-600 OBW. If you look closely you can see the layers he is digging through. The layers tell the history of this section of beach.

The stratified layers in the hole show the top 12 inches are beach sand, under that is a layer of shell hash and the bottom layer is the orange sand that was hauled in previously to renourish this area of the beach strand. This indicates that TS Ana did not wash away all the sand from the renourishment in this area.

This is another shot showing the layers and history of this section of the strand.

This photo was taken around the mid-600 block of OBW. You can see that the beach strand is widening and the dune escarpment is softening.

This photo from the west end of the island shows hillocks beginning to form new dunes.

This photo is a close up of a hillock. The dead grass traps the sand and starts the dune building process.

Click here for a summary of the June Board of Commissioners’ Meeting.  Highlights included an update from the Town Manager on the current state of the beach strand post-Ana, and a vote on landscaping for the mainland side of the bridge.

Join us May 23rd at 10:00am for our Memorial Day meeting.   Mayor Holden will give us an update on what is going on with the Town and the Police Department will fill us in on what is happening regarding crime and safety.

In addition, hear an update on the Mega Houses/Wedding venues, damage from Tropical Storm Ana, and other issues affecting our Town.

Hope to see you there!

Click here for a short summary of the results of Tuesday night’s April Board of Commissioners’ meeting.

Information about the impacts of Tropical Storm Ana that were reported at the meeting are bolded.   Several members have reported much more damage than was discussed and sent photos.  Scroll down to the previous post for an update and photos.  Please email us your photos and we will add them to the page.  You can also comment on the post with the damage you experienced.

As always, feel free to email us at [email protected] with questions and we will get back to you.

Holden Beach took a beating from Tropical Storm Ana as she crawled north last weekend, see photos posted below.  The persistent onshore winds led to significant beach erosion  in certain areas. The east end fared well with no significant erosion.  Homeowners from the 200 block of OBW and west had more beach loss.  There is a significant escarpment and some homes have lost their steps down to the beach.  The escarpment is approximately five feet tall in the 300 block and eight feet tall in the 500 block.

Flooding was observed on Scotch Bonnet, Tuna and there was standing water on OBW.  Many houses have lost shingles or vinyl siding.  Blown over trash cans and portapotties were also common.

Ana Stats

Tropical Storm Ana made landfall between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach at 6:00 a.m. EDT on Sunday, May 10.  The National Hurricane Center downgraded Ana to a tropical depression at 2 p.m. EDT on Sunday.  Ana originally formed as a subtropical storm off the coast of the Carolinas Thursday night.  Early Saturday morning, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Ana to a Tropical Storm.

Winds gusted up to 59 mph near Southport, and up to 55 mph at the Ocean Crest Pier on Oak Island.  A wind gust to 60 mph was reported at a buoy south-southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina on Saturday evening.  In South Carolina, a peak wind gust of 50 mph was measured in North Myrtle Beach early Sunday morning.  Ana brought rain along with the wind, Southport picked up 6.39 inches and North Myrtle Beach received 6.16 inches.

Taken from 300 block looking East.

Taken from 300 block looking west.

Walkway was well beyond toe of dune. Now overhangs beach by 20 feet.

From Jim and Glenda Shipley

From Jean Lakey, Tarpon Drive, May 2015

From Jean Lakey, Tarpon Drive, May 2015

If you have photos of the impacts from Ana please send them to [email protected] and we will add them to this post.  You can comment on this post below.

The Holden Beach Board of Commissioners will have their regular monthly meeting on May 12, at 7:00pm at Town Hall.  Click here for the agenda.

If you see an agenda item of interest and want more information you can contact the Holden Beach Commissioners.  You can also drop us an email at [email protected] and we will get back to you.

At the Easter HBPOA meeting the members voted unanimously to ask the Town to consider adopting the County’s new noise ordinance.  The ordinance will not cover Holden Beach unless it is adopted by the Commissioners.   You can view a presentation with more information about it here.

The County’s ordinance calls for measuring noise decibel levels to determine if there is excessive noise.  The decibel thresholds are based on the time of day.  The current noise ordinance for Holden Beach is much less specific.

HB Police encourage residents and visitors to call 911 to report  noise problems.  Tell the operator it is not an emergency.  The call is then dispatched to an officer and tracked.  While many people are uncomfortable calling 911 for non-emergency calls, this is the method that works best for the HB police department to keep records of all noise complaints.