Coastal populations continue to increase globally, causing potential damage costs of coastal hazards to rise and community resiliency to become a worldwide priority. Recently, Hurricane Sandy (2012) devastated areas of New York and New Jersey and caused overwash and breaching of several urbanized barrier islands along the U.S. eastern seaboard. This study focuses on the morphological response of Bay Head, NJ, a township on a barrier island fronted with a buried seawall. The hydrodynamics and morphology of Bay Head during Hurricane Sandy are simulated with XBeach, a numerical model designed to study these processes during storm events. From the simulations, the seawall protected Bay Head by effectively dissipating wave energy during the peak of the storm and from rapidly increasing bay water levels that flood the backbarrier region of the island. When the seawall is removed from the simulation, dune heights are lowered, allowing bay side flooding to cause a devastating erosive event that completely destroys the remaining dune system. XBeach indicates severe erosion seaward of ocean

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Storm surge and waves from Hurricane Nate in 2017 resulted in large overwash and inundation regions on Dauphin Island, Alabama. The overwash event consisted of the transport of water and sediment over the beach, dune, and barrier island system. Seven transects were established to measure pre- and post-storm survey profiles. Nine wave and water level sensors were deployed in an overwash region and captured the overwash conditions including time-varying water levels and waves. All transects experienced a net loss of sediment from the subaerial region surveyed and a range of inundation and sediment overwash. The results highlight the limits of empirical estimates for evaluating the exposure of backdune regions to overwash and inundation.