The high tides and heavy surf from the north winds took their toll on the beach stairs last night.
The E. Shell stairs are completely gone, including the aluminum railings, though the cantilevered landing we installed a year ago in January is intact. There may have been as much as 6 feet of sand washed away at the seawall.
The E. Barefoot stairs lost the lower portion of the stairs just as they did in Nov. 22 with hurricane Nicole. Probably 4 to 6 feet of sand was washed away there also.
We have put up wood barriers and caution tape at the top of each of these stairs for safety.
The Pebble Path stairs are intact and have lost little to no beach sand as yet. I think they should be ok. So folks wanting to access the beach can do so at E. Pebble Path. The security lock combination on the E. Pebble Path gate is 1881.
We will not be able to do any work on the stairs for the next couple weeks as the county will be doing sand deposition along the seawall. This may actually help us in the short term as they usually pile the sand up to the top of the seawall and folks may be able to access the beach without stairs.
The issue this time will be permitting. Last time because of the named hurricane and Governor’s decree we were able to do emergency permits for the repairs and do them in house. That will not be the case this time so there may be an additional time delay as we work through the permitting process with the county..
I will keep posting new information here as things develop.
Thanks,
John Lehnhardt – SIA President