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When members of the Deal Lake Commission went to survey the damage Hurricane Sandy caused to the flume house that connects Deal Lake with the Atlantic Ocean, they thought they were going to have to replace the entire structure.

“It was pretty bad,” said Don Brockel [shown above, in front of the flume house], chairman of the Deal Lake Commission. “There was a lot of stress on the structure during the storm, it was basically filled with water.”

But, as it turns out, the structure was “stronger than the storm — or any other major storm since 1921, when it was built,” he said.

Deal Lake originally opened to the sea until the early 1890′s when a flume was built, according to the Deal Lake Commission web site. A flume is a man-made channel for water to travel through.

The Deal Lake channel begins at the westernmost portion of the lake, under the flume house, and travels west under Ocean Avenue and out through the jetty that separates Asbury Park’s Eighth Avenue beach from Loch Arbor. Water is constantly in exchange between the two bodies of water.

“It allows the ocean to come in during high tide, where herring and white perch spawn in the lake and head back out into the ocean, and helps reduce the risk of flooding during extreme storms,” according to Brockel.

The flume house holds two pole-like mechanisms [called actuators]. They serve to open the metal doors [called sluice gates, shown at right, halfway open with the channel to the immediate right] that allow the commission to drain up to 15 inches — as per state regulations— out of the lake into the ocean in the event of a major storm.

When the northern and southern sluice gates are at “full open,” the lake will drain into the ocean at a rate of 1 inch per hour, he said.

Just before Sandy rolled in, ocean water poured in through the channel “like a firehose,” Brockel said. In the event another major storm is slated to hit the area, Brockel will open the sluice gates and begin to drain the lake well in advance, he said.

The effects of Sandy saw accelerated cracking of the already-decayed concrete, the flume house door torn off, and a damaged southern actuator and sluice gate, which had to be taken apart and remounted so it would be stable, said Brockel.

Instead of a full replacement of the concrete structure, part of the floor around the southern actuator was replaced, masons sealed and painted cracks in the walls, the door was replaced and the house will soon receive a new roof.

Funds for the repair materials, inspection engineers and labor came through the Deal Lake Commission, who are hopeful “FEMA will pick up the bill,” Brockel said.

They have submitted initial request through city of Asbury Park, who will submit the final bills to FEMA. The whole project cost under $30,000, Brockel said.

For more information about the flume house, including photos of the interior and videos of the channel activity, click here. Residents can also check the status of the lake on the left side of the Deal Lake Commission website.

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