Stormy Jekyll

Are big storms becoming more and more frequent around Jekyll?

growth of their eggs. The reset that hurricanes provide is good for turtles' success."

Is there anything that Jekyll visitors and residents can do to help stem the tide of change? Hill recommends diligently obeying educational signage and warnings posted around sensitive areas. "People don't understand how fragile the sand dune system is, and how important it is to protect our shorelines from erosion," she says. "Don't wander into the dunes and trample vegetation." Professional mitigation measures are nothing new on Jekyll, and they continue. (See the so-called Johnson rocks, an abetment of granite boulders stretching down the island's east coast to slow erosion, originally installed in the 1960s after Dora and recently restored.) More recent flood-fighting upgrades have come ashore, from bioretention areas and functional landscaping that helps keep soil in place, to permeable concrete in several places around the island, gravel bike trails, and permeable pavers that help water infiltrate the ground and relieve the burden on stormwater infrastructure. Elsewhere, bioswales in hotel parking lots, Hill says, are mistaken by visitors as gardens. (Bioswales are designed to control stormwater runoff.) Another tactic by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is more experimental; it involves dredge material pulled from the bottom of Jekyll's intercoastal channel that's sprayed evenly over the marshland to raise its elevation, if only slightly, in the face of sea-level rise. Yet another measure that could have a broad, positive impact is Jekyll's adoption of a sea-level ordinance last summer mandating that future development be raised a specific height, per DNR recommendations, to accommodate for more frequent flooding events. Jennifer Kline, Georgia DNR's coastal hazards specialist, says Jekyll's government was the first in the 11-county coastal area to implement such an ordinance.

"Jekyll is not unique in its vulnerability on the coast," says Kline. "But, where Jekyll is unique is that they are being extremely proactive and have really stepped out front recently to address some of those vulnerabilities. Continuing down that path is a positive step forward in being able to adapt."

Impactful storms have come ashore throughout the island's existence, but the terminology for them has changed over the years. These days, according to the National Hurricane Center, a tropical storm is defined as a tropical cyclone (a cyclone is a "rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms that originates over tropical or subtropical waters and has a closed low-level circulation") that has maximum sustained winds of 39 mph to 73 mph. A hurricane is a tropical cyclone with maximum sustained winds of 74 mph or higher. Here's a summary of hurricanes and tropical storms in the area over the past 163 years.

Historical records indicate nine hurricanes struck coastal Georgia from 1851 to 1900.

Five hurricanes were logged from 1901 to 1950, when "tropical storm" designations began.

Just one hurricane (Dora) landed from 1951 to 2000, but 10 others were classified as tropical storms.

This century, two tropical storms were recorded from 2001 to 2012, but no hurricanes.

Since 2012, the coast has seen just one hurricane make landfall, though at least four have had a significant impact on Jekyll. Nine tropical storms have struck in the last decade.