Repairing a Damaged Streambank (right!)

Hurricane Fran's thirteen inches of rain turned this stream into a highly erosive torrent that chewed away several feet of stream bank between the cabin and the stream. The flood left a vertical, unstable bank, capable of sloughing off still more soil and remaining unstable for years to come.

These landowners attempted to stabilize this bank before additional erosion occurred. However, many restoration practitioners might disagree with some of the stabilization methods used in this location. For example, instead of setting up gabions (metal mesh baskets) filled with rocks, a preferable alternative design might have been to rebuild the sloped bank using boulders too large for floods to move.