CLEVELAND -- Recent rough weather has caused thousands of dollars in damage to docks at a local marina -- where $10,000 in improvements had just been finished to repair damage from Superstorm Sandy.
Commodore Mike Blankenship of Intercity Yacht Club says he suspects the damage happened Friday night when a storm went through.
"Every now and then, we get a west wind, and we have a surge of water come into the marina for maybe 15 to 20 seconds and then go back out," he said. "The water came in, and it came in higher than normal. The docks on the end usually lift up with the water and go back down."
This time, however, a north wind pushed them back out into the harbor.
At least 20 of the 120 docks at the marina, at 3701 North Marginal Road next to the Gordon Park boat ramps, were damaged, Blankenship said.
He said all of the damaged docks were 30-foot floating docks.
"That's going to displace over 20-some boaters," he said.
Blankenship says he has other docks in the marina to accommodate some, but not all, of those boaters.
While he's discussed the damage with the yacht club's board, Blankenship said he has yet to inform the members whose docks are affected, preferring to "let boaters enjoy the holiday."
He has an appointment with his insurance agent Friday but is already guessing the damage will be $12,000 to $15,000. He doesn't know how quickly the repair work can be done, adding that the work to repair the Sandy damage wasn't finished until the end of the 2013 boating season -- nearly a year after the storm hit Northeast Ohio.
Asked about the one-two punch of Superstorm Sandy and the recent damage, Blankenship wasn't sure what to say.
"It's actually kind of hard to put into words," he said. "I'm still in shock, actually. During the Sandy storm, we didn't get that much damage. This is more damage than the Sandy storm. Other marinas suffered a lot more damage than we did."
