Morphologic Response to a New Inlet, Packery Channel, Corpus Christi, Texas

In Jul 2005, Packery Channel was opened by Hurricane Emily during the second year of its construction. This inlet connects Corpus Christi Bay and Upper Laguna Madre to the Gulf of Mexico, and it is the first artificially cut inlet in Texas in 17 years. The inlet has remained open and navigable for shallow-draft recreational boats despite construction delays, and its parallel dual jetties were completed in Sep 2006. A physical process monitoring program was initiated prior to construction in 2003 to track the evolution of the channel, surrounding nearshore, and adjacent beaches. Maximum ebb current in the inlet often exceeds 1 m/s, and an ebb shoal has not yet formed. The shorelines adjacent to the jetties, as well as the seaward longshore bars, respond to seasonal changes in wind direction, hence direction of longshore sand transport. Shoreline change varies seasonally, but adjacent to the inlet the shoreline is nearly symmetrical.