DOT Will Seek Public Input on More Permanent Protection for A1A, But Options Are Limited

Input will be framed by a half-dozen proposals presented by DOT, focusing on a range of possibilities for a 13-mile stretch of road, from Volusia County to Beverly Beach. Options are limited. The department is not attempting to reinvent the wheel, only to keep wheels trundling along one of the nation’s last remaining highways with direct frontage on the Atlantic ocean without having to rebuild the road every three years.

Those options have been narrowing as sea levels have been rising and even routine storms such as nor’easters and major tide events have been inflicting damage to the shoreline. Options range from building more sea walls to dumping stronger rock revetments to engaging in recurring but very expensive beach renourishment, to combinations of all three. Beyond that, there are no viable alternatives.

Unlike proposals in the wake of Hurricane Matthew’s destruction of A1A, there appears to be no proposal to move or realign A1A, an option that has always drawn intense public opposition. DOT after Matthew had proposed moving A1A to Central Avenue in Flagler Beach.

There will be only two such “listening sessions,” as DOT is calling them. The first is scheduled for Jan. 19 at Ormond Memorial Art Museum and Gardens. The second will be on Jan. 24 at Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church Parish Hall in Flagler Beach. Both will be at 7 p.m.




Whether the department is genuinely seeking public input or merely going through the motions of giving the appearance of listening is open to question. The department has customarily kept the development of its proposals close to the vest, involving the public only to a limited degree before going ahead with plans that may have been in the pipeline regardless.

The department spent more than $27 million repairing A1A in Flagler Beach, and building a sea wall at the north end of town, in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew–not including the $20 million the county secured in state tax dollars to dump a thin ribbon of dunes on 11 miles of beach north of the city.

That ribbon had vanished well ahead of last year’s hurricanes. By the time Nicole had passed through the region, A1A was again in tatters in many parts in Flagler Beach and south into Volusia County. The Department of Transportation began emergency repairs during Nicole’s final throes, and eventually dumped over 24,000 cubic yards of sand and 17,000 tons of coquina and granite rocks just from South 7th Street in Flagler Beach to High Bridge Road in Ormond Beach.




Repeated public information requests to DOT for the costs of those repairs, and details about the contracting, have gone unfilled for over two months. Cindy Lane, the department’s spokesperson, did not return calls today.

Shortly after Hurricane Nicole struck, DOT established what it called a “resiliency strike team” to devise a long-term solution to the seemingly endless cycle of storm destruction and repairs to A1A.The team includes engineers from Volusia and Flagler counties, Flagler Beach City Manager William Whitson, Flagler County Administrator Heidi Petito, representatives from DOT and the U.S. Corps of Engineers, and is led by DOT. It has met weekly on Mondays.

The department’s stated aims are to preserve the scenic nature of A1A “for decades to come,” preserve the natural environment around it, and partner with local, state and federal governments “to layer in additional protective measures,” according to a one-page plan issued ahead of the public input sessions. The department aims to select a preferred option as early as February.

The 13 miles of roadway extend from Osprey Drive in Flagler Beach, the northernmost point of a sea wall DOT built in 2019, to Roberta Road in Volusia County.

While opposition to sea walls in Flagler has waned somewhat, especially in light of the contrast between the protection provided to the road by the sea wall at Osprey Drive compared to the damage the road sustained south of the pier, the environmental effects of sea walls remain unchanged: while protecting property behind them, they tend over time to erode beaches, if beaches are left un-nourished by new sands.




That’s precisely what happened to the sea wall in north Flagler Beach: it held, but it was designed to be a “buried” sea wall, beneath broad and deep dunes of white sand. That sand had mostly eroded before Ian and Nicole, and was entirely gone by the time Ian and Nicole struck, leaving the area without a high-tide beach as the sea laps at the wall’s pillars.

DOT is also facing another challenge that, absent a change in policy, remains an obstacle for blended approaches, unless it pays for them: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will not renourish beaches what are lined with sea walls. That’s why DOT had to build the dunes at Osprey Drive–and why it has not built a sea wall in the 2.6-mile stretch south of the Flagler Beach pier, where the Corps is expected to rebuild the dune system.