TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. — Sunset Beach has been taken over by heavy machinery as work to repair the dunes is now underway. It's all a part of an emergency project the county pulled together in a matter of weeks.
The next four to six weeks will be spent hauling in sand to replace the sand Hurricane Idalia pushed inland.
"We had a lot of the beach and sand that was washed into the streets," Treasure Island Fire Chief Trip Barrs said. "That sand became contaminated and wasn't able to go back on the beach. And it left in some places [with] a 3 or 4-foot cliff."
While crews work, Sunset Beach and public access parking lots south of Caddy's are closed. Businesses on the island remain open. While the city has communicated this many times, there is still some confusion as to what is and isn't accessible and open.
"We are fielding a lot of phone calls," Caddy's general manager Jessica Ford said. "A couple of the local Airbnbs and hotels and inns and cottages have reached out to us just to make sure we are open because they are also getting affected by it."
Sunset Beach was already years overdue for beach renourishment. Then Hurricane Idalia made a bad situation worse.
"Our concern is that if we don't do this project now, if we get another storm this season or before it gets done, we could start losing homes," Barrs said. "So there is an urgency to the project."
That urgency is what pushed this project to happen so quickly. Parts of the project are being engineered as the work is happening.
Roughly 100 to 200 truckloads of sand are being dropped off here every day. An excavator is used to load it up into an offroad dump truck. They'll disperse the sand across the dunes to restore Sunset Beach.
Crews are working 12-hour days, six days a week to get sand hauled in as quickly and as safely as possible.
Gator Dredging was contracted by the county for the work. Sand is hauled in from Lakeland and dropped off on Sunset Beach. The sand had to be tested for compatibility with the existing sand on Sunset Beach.
"We've had probably 20 loads of support equipment coming through and trucks throughout the Tampa Bay area moving all this week just to be able to be here and move sand this quick," said Philip Findlay, the owner of Gator Dredging.
Several beaches between Clearwater and Pass-a-Grille will receive dune restoration in the coming months.
To follow along with the project's updates, click here.
The overall project is estimated to cost $25 million to $30 million. About $6 million of that is for Sunset Beach. The project is being funded by Tourist Development Tax dollars. Pinellas County is seeking reimbursement and/or a cost-share with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
Malique Rankin is a general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.