Coastal bays and, specifically, back‐barrier tidal basins host productive ecosystems, coastal communities, and critical infrastructure. As sea level continues to rise and tropical cyclones increase in intensity, these coastal systems are increasingly at risk. Developing a sediment budget is imperative to understanding how storm events affect the system's resilience, where net import of sediment indicates growth and resilience against sea level rise, and net export of sediment indicates deterioration. Using high‐resolution numerical simulations, we show that intense storms import sediment into a system of bays in Virginia, USA. Duration and magnitude of storm surge are among the most important factors in sediment import, suggesting that intense storms increase the stability of tidal bays by providing the sediment necessary to counteract sea level rise. Since climate models project that tropical cyclones will increase in intensity in coming decades, our results have significant implications for the resilience of tidal bays and the future of coastal communities worldwide.

Key points:1) We measure agreement among coastal scientists labeling the same sets of post-storm images.2) Coastal scientists agree more when rating landforms, less when labeling inferred processes.3) Iterating on questions, providing documentation, and using smaller image sizes all increase agreement.

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Characterizing the fragility, resistance, and resilience of marshes is critical for understanding their role in reducing storm damages and for helping to manage the recovery of these natural defenses. This study uses high-resolution aerial imagery to quantify the impacts of Hurricane Michael, a category 5 hurricane, on coastal salt marshes in the Florida Panhandle, USA. Marsh damage was classified into several categories, including deposition of sediment or wrack, fallen trees, vegetation loss, and conversion to open water. The marshes were highly resistant to storm damages even under extreme conditions; only 2% of the 173,259 km2 of marshes in the study area were damaged—a failure rate much lower than that of artificial defenses. Marshes may be more resistant than resilient to storm impacts; damaged marshes were slow to recover, and only 16% of damaged marshes had recovered 6 months after landfall. Marsh management mattered for resistance and resilience; marshes on publicly-managed lands were less likely to be damaged and more likely to recover quickly from storm impacts than marshes on private land, emphasizing the need to incentivize marsh management on private lands. These results directly inform policy and practice for hazard mitigation, disaster recovery, adaptation, and conservation, particularly given the potential for more intense hurricane landfalls as the climate changes.