PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — For the past year, Pinellas County has been dumping tons of sand on its beaches, spending millions of dollars to shore up sea dunes and protect the coastline.
Now, there's fear the storm surge from Helene could undo all of that in just a matter of hours.
There was genuine concern among the county’s beach management team that the better part of the county's coastline — including newly nourished beaches and the sand dunes — could be at serious risk.
“The dunes are at risk. They will likely erode,” said Pinellas Beach Management Director John Bishop. “Portions of them will then fall onto the beach and help to build the beach back after the storm, but a storm like this has the potential to cause significant erosion.”
On Tuesday, short on time with lots of ground to cover, county workers were moving quickly down the shoreline taking measurements and photographs.
“We're taking photos before and after, and we're also using GPS to kind of take a profile of the beach so that we can compare it after the storm and determine how much sand has been lost,” Bishop said.
The county's beaches were already damaged by Hurricane Debby but did what they were designed to do — protecting the coastline.
This time, given storm surge projections, there's concern the dunes could be overwhelmed.
“Well, we don't have a lot of beach,” Bishop said. “So, with the projection for storm surge, it could do significant dune erosion and inundate significant areas of barrier islands.”
Workers on Pass-a-Grille Beach were also using what few hours they had left to pump as much protective sand as they could before safeguarding their equipment.
For the past two months, they've been widening the area, as businesses and visitors wait for the project to wrap up.
Now, by Thursday, a lot of it could be washed right back out to sea.
“It could be all gone. It could be all starting all over again,” said local worker Dave Serjak. “They've already had to start over again, down at the far corner because it had already washed away once with the last storm.”
While the timing is tough, Bishop says he’d rather have the protection in place and wash away rather than face the alternative.
“It's there for protection. It's there for recreation,” Bishop said. “So, it's going to fulfill its protection role, I think pretty quick.”
The permit to nourish Pass-a-Grille Beach is still open, so it's possible they could start over if they needed to, but Bishop said that would require authorization from county leaders, more time and more money.
There may be one silver lining in the timing of all this as Bishop says the vast majority of turtle nests have already hatched out this season, meaning there is far less concern about those nests being washed away by this storm.