About 4 dump truck loads of sand was pushed off Fort Myers Beach by Hurricane Debby last Sunday. That sand is being cleaned and put back on the beach by the town as quickly as possible.
The FEMA emergency berm, that was built up and down the entire island, following Hurricane Ian, was also damaged in places. The town will be replacing the berm with sand from the sand bar in the Gulf of Mexico that is going to be used as part of the beach renourishment project. Sand will need to be trucked in if there’s not enough sand to replace the berm from the sand bar. The town has over $3 million from a Department of Emergency Management grant if more sand needs to be purchased and hauled in by truck.
The big beach renourishment project will be slightly delayed due to the storm as the contractor resets all the equipment that was moved to safety before Debby came to shore. How long that delay will be is isn’t clear yet. The equipment needs to be moved back in place and tested before the project restarts.
The big beach renourishment project is still expected to be completed by the end of the year. 950,000 cubic yards of sand will be dredged from a nearshore borrow area in the Gulf of Mexico and placed onto Fort Myers Beach.
The project is starting on the north end. Beachgoers will see a large pipe pumping sand onto the beach. It’s considered a construction zone so please stay outside the fencing. Ahtna Marine Construction will fence off about 1,000 feet for the project and move 100 feet down the beach per day. They should be on the north end for 30 days, by Crescent Beach park for 30 days then on the south end for 30 days. Once the sand is pumped onto the beach bulldozers will spread it out.
For those of you that live in Leonardo Arms, where the Gulf is basically up to your front door, you will be getting an original sand dump of 200 feet. That will then naturally recede back to 75 feet.
When this $22 million beach renourishment project is complete, on top of the recently completed truck-haul sand replacement project, Fort Myers Beach will see $43 million worth of new sand (1.3 million yards). The $22 Million beach renourishment project is being funded through multiple sources: Lee County, The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, FEMA and the town.
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Ed … Having watched your awesome live coverage of Debby, I would think that the most important fix should be the water drainage, or lack thereof, on Old San Carlos where many of the businesses are (were) .. If they are to expect people to rebuild or inve$t in that area, they need to be able to feel secure that a big rain won’t put them out of business ..
The naturally occurring dead seaweed, organic material that accrues after a storm like Debby provides the shoreline with a barrier that is designed to accumulate sand with each ebbing tide. Yes it’s messy and doesn’t smell great but it will be absorbed into the shoreline in time. It is nature’s way of replenishing barrier island beaches. To rake this up and haul it away and then spend millions dumping sand from elsewhere is both insane and expensive. The city of Sanibel lets nature handle this stuff. So should the Town of FMB.
You are correct Barbara. It needs to be left alone. Such a shame.
A berm will only be effective if it is seeded or if it is anchored by plants. When you build a sand castle on the beach, eventually the tide washes it away. The same will happen to the berm. Total waste of money.
I think with the high cost of doing & redoing the berm every time a hurricane goes by I think it’s time to design something long term that will be there to stay. For instance small pilings and concrete chunks plus sand to smooth the berm for people to walk over to the water, this berm that was done it’s a WASTE if you leave smooth areas at every beach access. WHERE DO YOJ THING THE WATER WAS GOING TO GO.
If the pattern of seas levels risings and hurricane coming more often it only seems like we should consider a long term solution that would help with the pesty yearly storms & let me be clear, I know a monster like IAN there is no stopping thing like that.
LET’S HOPE IT WAS A ONCE IN A LIFETIME EVENT.
Thank you to Ed for covering this issue. If he didn’t mention it, no one would bring it up.
I have no idea who came up with the berm idea but clearly this is not working. Even a tropical storm destroys is and then we are forced to pay to clean up this bad idea, over and over and over. The only way to solve the problem is by building a 3ft tall wall at the sand’s edge. (by the sidewalk) This would also protect the turtles. This is doing nothing but wasting tax payers money.
FMB has 2 main problems 1.) water/storms 2.) traffic
We lived through 8 yrs of non-stop construction on Estero and many of our side streets to prevent us from having water problems and to supposedly build an additional lane to help with the traffic. The “improvements” did nothing to help those problems.
Now someone had the bright idea to build berms to help with the water flooding us from the storms. How about telling us how much the tax payers have paid out of pocket for all the sand that was removed by Idelia and now Debby? This literally is the defination of insanity.
NOTHING has been done to solve the traffic yet big complexes are constantly being approved with no one addressing traffic and NOTHING has been done to stop the water issues.
I know we can’t stop mother nature but we could build a seawall that could prevent some of these storms washing the berm across the street and stop making us pay for it over and over and over.
Someone please enlighten me on what has been done to solve either problem?