Piles supporting Beaufort’s waterfront are in ‘severe deterioration.’ ‘It’s frightening’

The relieving platform otherwise known as the supporting structure of Beaufort’s iconic seawall at its famed Waterfront Park is in “severe deterioration.” The seawall is the anchor of the city’s downtown but the deterioration is so severe the weight of a docking cruise ship could potentially cause a “catastrophic failure” — and must be replaced.

Those are the conclusions of a new report and one of the engineers who dived into the silty, murky waters of the Beaufort River to inspect the massive 50-year-old underwater relieving platform attached to the seawall at the foot of Waterfront Park.

The report has prompted the city to suspend visits by large cruise ships and begin discussions on temporary and long-term fixes to what may be the city’s most well-known public amenity in what will surely be a multi-million dollar capital expense.

Bill Barna, an underwater engineering consultant with McSweeney Engineers, was among a five-person team of divers who inspected the seawall and relieving platform at the park as part of a five-year inspection. The popular seawall, where cruise ships had been docking and tourists and residents walk on a promenade along the river, was opened in 1979 and basically floats on a series of 570 pilings.

In 2005, the park was renovated at a cost to the city of Beaufort for more than $8 million.

According to Barna, it is the supporting structure relieving platform that has the most concerning deterioration, but the 1,200-foot-long seawall is showing its age, too and needs repairs.

The relieving platform, a horizontal structural designed to lower the pressure on the seawall, has 570 concrete piles, a concrete cap and a concrete deck and 6 feet of fill.

In the recent inspection, the diving team found seven piles that were broken beyond repair and another 46 with moderate to major deterioration including a soft outer layer with rounded edges. The original piles were square.

“Right now,” says Barna, “the consistency of that material is like pudding.”

Following previous inspections, encasements, or jackets, were placed around 47 piles to reinforce them “to eke out a little more life,” and those fixes are intact, Barna said.

“Most significantly, in isolated locations this deterioration has led to exposure of the internal reinforcing steel,” McSweeney Engineers wrote in a 46-page inspection report to the city. “These conditions result in an overall loss of structural capacity in comparison with as built conditions.”

At a recent meeting when the report’s findings were presented to the City Council, Councilman Mitch Mitchell asked Barna whether “something catastrophic could happen.”

“I find it quite frightening to be honest with you,” Mitchell said of the condition of the relieving platform.

Typically, Barna said, these types of structures fail slowly without a catastrophic collapse. Under normal deterioration, gradual signs, like sinks holes, would appear. While sink holes have been seen in the past at Beaufort’s Watefront park, most have been attributed to problems with the seawall, not the relieving platform, Barna said. He added, “Where I think you could potentially have a catastrophic failure would be where if you had a cruise ship incident.”

In 2023, a 220-foot-long cruise vessel tore a handrail post from the seawall foundation.

The largest concentration of defects and pile encasements are at the west end of the facility, which is where commercial cruise vessels moor against the structure and where the water is deepest and the current is highest, the report notes.

The ability of the structure to continue withstanding the additional lateral loads from these vessels, the report adds, is “highly suspect.”

The safest actions, the report recommends, would be restricting cruise ship mooring until the structure is replaced or an auxiliary mooring system is installed.

The report also recommends increased inspections and initiating preliminary studies and securing funding to begin replacement of the structure.

Barna suspects a “quality control issue” during the casting of the piles is a factor in their deterioration.

“It’s pretty clear we can’t have another cruise ship in here until there’s some sort of mitigation” of the strain that large vessels place on the platform, City Manager Scott Marshall said. The city, Marshall said, has been in communication with American Cruise Lines, which docks in Beaufort. The company is willing to work with the city on a mitigating structure, Marshall said. The city also plans to consult with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control’s Ocean and Coastal Resource Management division and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

This isn’t the first time inspectors have found problems. In 2014, Barna noted, 30% of the piles had missing concrete. Complicating the issue today is only 227 of the 570- piles supporting the structure are accessible because of silt build-up below the structure. The excessive silt has increased to the point where a diver, on his belly, with his face in the channel bottom, and reserve air tank touching the ceiling, cannot safely access the piling in these locations, Barna said.

“It suffices to say that the foundation supporting the relieving platform has reached the end of its service life,” the report says.