Delaware

Delaware will see $25M in repairs after flooding on Indian River Inlet, Route 1

Published

1 year ago

September 25, 2024

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Delaware will see M in repairs after flooding on Indian River Inlet, Route 1

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This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The Indian River Inlet will get $10 million in federal funding for a large-scale beach replenishment project — that’s on top of the $15 million the state gave to the effort earlier this month.

Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control held a public meeting Tuesday evening at Bethany Beach Town Hall to update residents on the issue. Those familiar with the situation say the $25 million will help to stop the bleeding for now, but a longer-term fix is still needed.

The dune on the northeast end of the inlet bridge was breached Aug. 18, due to Hurricane Ernesto. The high tide, powerful winds and waves caused by the hurricane breached the dune and forced the closure of Route 1, according to DNREC Secretary Shawn Garvin in a Sept. 6 editorial in The News Journal. Garvin said the agency was short of the funds it needed, but a spokesperson for Gov. John Carney confirmed that $15 million was approved for the ongoing daily work and emergency replenishment.

“This area is one of the most visible signs of the increasing effect of storms on our state,” Carney said in a statement released earlier this month. “State crews have been engaged in continuous repair work over the last month, but we are still seeing threat to the dunes and the highway at many high tides, so we need to put larger protections into place in the near term.”

The August breach was the second time the Coastal Highway infrastructure has been threatened in the past several months by water from the Atlantic Ocean because the dune required emergency repair from DNREC and the Delaware Department of Transportation. Sand dunes provide natural protection against storm surges and high waves by preventing or minimizing flooding and infrastructure damage.

Rep. Ron Gray (R-Selbyville) says his constituents are concerned about the bridge remaining passable. He says everyone from first responders to residents heading to work use it daily.

“It’s the major thoroughfare that without it, there would be a 45-minute detour to go around,” he said. “So not only the convenience, but it’s public safety. If someone needs hospital facilities or emergency facilities, it’s a direct route up to Beebe Hospital from south of the inlet.”

Gray said there’s two pieces to the repairs: the near-term dredging project and work to make the sand bypass system operational again. According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the bypass is designed to move “approximately 100,000 cubic yards of sand annually to nourish the beach on the north side of the inlet jetty.”

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Delaware

MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

Published

8 hours ago

January 9, 2026

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MERR responds to dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach

A dead humpback whale washed up near Bethany Beach on Jan. 8, according to the nonprofit Marine Education Research and Rehabilitation Institute.

The juvenile male was first seen Jan. 6, floating at sea about 2 miles off the Indian River Inlet, a MERR Facebook post said. The bloated 30-foot whale ultimately beached near a private community in the early afternoon of Jan. 8, the post said.

MERR is attempting to coordinate with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control to get equipment to move the whale out of the water and onto the beach to perform a necropsy, the post said. Right now, there isn’t enough information to determine a cause of death.

Delaware saw at least three dead whales last year, in the Indian River Bay, at Delaware Seashore State Park and at Pigeon Point. The first two were humpbacks, while the Pigeon Point whale was a fin whale.

A necropsy on the Delaware Seashore whale found blunt force trauma across its back, indicating it may have been struck by a ship, MERR Director Suzanne Thurman said.

Recently, on Jan. 4, a dead fin whale was found on the bow of a ship at the Gloucester Marine Terminal in New Jersey, which is located in the Port of Philadelphia on the Delaware River.

Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com or on Facebook.

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Delaware

Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

Published

20 hours ago

January 8, 2026

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Pa. man accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from Delco cemetery

A Pennsylvania man is accused of stealing more than 100 skeletons from a cemetery in Delaware County.

Jonathan Gerlach, 34, of Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is charged with abuse of corpse, criminal mischief, burglary and other related offenses, Delaware County District Attorney Tanner Rouse revealed on Thursday, Jan. 8.

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Between November 2025 and Jan. 6, 2026, 26 mausoleums and underground burial sites had been burglarized or desecrated at Mount Moriah Cemetery, which stretches from Yeadon Borough, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia, investigators said.

As police investigated the thefts, they caught Gerlach desecrating a monument at the cemetery on Tuesday, Jan. 6, according to officials. Gerlach was taken into custody and investigators executed a search warrant at his home in Ephrata.

During the search, investigators recovered 100 human skeletons from Gerlach’s home as well as eight more human remains inside a storage locker, according to Rouse.

“Detectives walked into a horror movie come to life the other night guys,” Rouse said. “This is an unbelievable scene that no one involved – from myself to the detectives to the medical examiners that are now trying to piece together what they are looking at, quite literally – none of them have ever seen anything like this before.”

Rouse said some of the stolen skeletons are hundreds of years old.

“We are trying to figure out exactly what we are looking at,” Rouse said. “We quite simply at this juncture are not able to date and identify all of them.”

Rouse also said some of the skeletons are of infants and children.

“It is truly, in the most literal sense of the word, horrific,” Rouse said. “I grieve for those who are upset by this who are going through it who are trying to figure out if it is in fact their loved one or their child because we found remains that we believe to be months old infants among those that he had collected. Our hearts go out to every family that is impacted by this.”

Sources also told NBC10 the thefts are related to a similar case in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. Investigators said they are looking at Gerlach’s online community — including his social media groups and Facebook page — to determine if people were buying, selling, or trading the remains.

Gerlach is currently in custody at the Delaware County Prison after failing to post $1 million bail. Online court records don’t list an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

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