Photo by: wfla
The recent storm has dealt some damage to Pinellas County beaches, closing some access points this week and potentially through the holidays.
People are never allowed on the sand dunes, but officials are asking everyone to exercise extra caution after this past weekend’s storms.
“Before this weekend, this was the wall of the dunes, there was about a four foot drop off right here, since the last storm, it wiped out this,” said Jude Bond, vice mayor for Indian Rocks Beach.
Tony Fabrizio, with Pinellas County, said staff has been out conducting assessments over the last three days.
“The worst damage occurred between Belleair Beach and Indian Rocks Beach due to the timing of the high tide, and we also had damage to several of our public beach access points,” he said.
Bond said storms have taken about a third of their dunes this year.
“Despite the fact that they make very nice-looking benches and seats, we encourage everyone to stay very clear of them because, as you can see, they’re very fragile, they will erode very quickly. Somebody sits on them, plays on them, jumps on them, they’ll just crumble,” Bond said.
People visiting the beach said this weekend’s storms made it impossible to enjoy the beach.
“You basically couldn’t go on the beach, the tide was right up against the dunes,” Lee Hargreaves said.
A family of four walking along the beach told News Channel 8 that the beach needs to be protected.
“I think nature is priority instead of convenience for times when it’s needed like this,” Tatyana Pokidko said. “Completely respect that and we explained to the kids as well like the dunes, we need to protect them, because, you know, the houses are so close by.”
With all the erosion that’s occurred, Fabrizio said the dunes can easily collapse.
“These sand dunes were part of an emergency project to replace sand that was lost from a storm surge caused by Hurricane Idalia, and it was an emergency project, we had to do it quickly,” he said.
Officials said they want people to enjoy the beach, but most of all, they want people to do it safely.
The county is still assessing damage and will post which access points are open are closed online. The cities will also communicate about their own access points.
Bond said Indian Rocks Beach will have an update on Wednesday morning.
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Source: wfla
