Last Updated: 3:04 p.m.
The long Nor’easter that sheared through the area in late September and early October caused enough damage to Flagler County beaches that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is inviting the county to apply for a renourishment of the 2.8 miles of shore the Corps renourished only last year.
The county could be eligible for an emergency renourishment that would be 100 percent paid for with federal funds. But the county is required to take a few steps first to ensure that the project is evaluated by the Corps, starting with a letter to the federal agency stating the county wishes to proceed. The letter’s deadline is Dec. 12.
Flagler Beach City Manager Dale Martin asked County Administrator Heidi Petito in an email whether the county is going to send in the letter. He has not heard back. A FlaglerLive email to Petito asking the same question went unanswered. In mid-afternoon today, after this article appeared, Commissioner Andy Dance confirmed that the county intended to send in the letter.
Jason Harrah, the senior project manager at the Corps who’s shepherded Flagler County’s renourishment for two decades, wrote Flagler County and Flagler Beach officials on Nov. 20 inviting them to send in a written request for renourishment “if you believe the erosion damages to your project could qualify for rehabilitation assistance and …if a ‘potential’ renourishment construction contract is something you wish to pursue/assist with.”
After the Nor’easter, which barreled through Florida for over a week starting at the end of September, county officials surveyed all 18 miles of shoreline, documenting the extent of the damage in every segment. They found mild to moderate to severe damage across all 18 miles. (See: “Nor’easter Damage to Flagler’s Beaches, Neighborhood By Neighborhood: Emergency Dunes Are No Longer Enough.”)
In the Hammock, where the county had just started rebuilding dunes in the latest of many emergency projects, the storm took out half the new sand the county had just dropped. Certain areas, like Marineland, Marineland Acres, MalaCompra Park and Painters Hill were not as heavily damaged. But Varn Park and Beverly Beach’s shoreline was, as was the stretch the Army Corps had rebuilt south of the pier.
There, the storm took out well over half the sand that the renourishment had dumped, leaving tall “scarps” behind, those Cliffs-of-Dover-like white drops that outline the extent of the knife-like erosion of the dunes. The scarps in Beverly Beach are around 8 feet high. Most of the sand that had buried the huge secant seawall in northern Flagler Beach is gone, exposing the rock revetments beneath. The scarps in the Army Corps zone are about 6 feet high in some areas, and up to 3 feet in others.
The beach is not back to its critically eroded state. There is still a wide sandy beach stretch, particularly at low tide, but it is a far cry from a year ago, when the beaches stretched about the length of a football field from the dune line to the waterline.
There, the $27 million renourishment–the first in the county’s history–that took place in August 2024 dredged 1.3 million cubic yards of sand from a borrow pit 11 miles offshore to rebuild 2.8 miles of beach under the federal contract, and an additional half mile or so under a county contract. The sand recreated a beach that had long been eroded (the area was considered “critically eroded,” as are other segments of Flagler County’s shore) and rebuilt solid, ample dunes.
The renourished beach was originally intended to last 11 years. At least that’s what Flagler County believed when it signed the contract in 2019. Even as the sand was rebuilding the beach in 2024, that 11-year timeline no longer applied. Officials were estimating that another renourishment would be necessary within six years.
While no one explicitly talked of an emergency renourishment being necessary just a year after the beach was rebuilt, Harrah had warned all along that a newly renourished beach might need two or three successive renourishments for the sand to set in, especially on a “sediment-starved” beach like Flagler Beach’s, as County Coastal Engineer Ansley Wren-Key describes it. A beach does not only need the sand you see on the beach. To be healthy, it needs enough sand that washes in and out beneath the surf to keep the beach healthy.
The Army Corps stretch of 2.8 miles had neither. When it was rebuilt, the new sand accounted for the shoreline, but sediment was still lacking in the surf, even though a portion of the visible sand was expected to be washed out to build up that bank beneath the surf. The September storm proved too severe to leave enough behind.
Martin alerted the Flagler Beach City Commission of the Corps’ invitation last Thursday. “The Corps of Engineers has likely determined that the nor’easters have triggered a replenishment of the sand,” he said. He’d spoken with Harrah the day Harrah sent the letter. The emergency renourishment would be “a long, drawn-out process,” he said, so that there may be no new sand on the beach until a year from now (by which time yet more storms may cause additional damage.)
The Harrah letter notes that the process could be expedited if Flagler County were to conduct a survey of the sands, which would cost $25,000. The city commission appeared uninterested in footing that bill. Martin also asked Petito about whether the county was interested in doing that. The survey is not a requirement, however.
“So we’ll wait and see what we hear,” Martin said.
PaulT says
‘On a hiding to nothing’ is the only way to describe this perpetual beach replenishment progtam.
john stove says
OMG…the actual definition of Insanity….”Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results”!!!!
Enough with the dredge and fill “re-nourishment”…..armor the shoreline with seawall and wave action impeding structures and be done with it. Talk about a waste of money for the taxpayers.
ENOUGH!
DP says
Not being able to read or see the full email sent to the city and county from the corps. It would be hard to not pass up the opportunity. But knowing FC they will screw it up, and not send a request. I say it, as the commission can’t even come to a solution to keep the beaches renourished. Time will tell !!!!!
Bill says
Hahaha so you’re reliant on a felon who murders people and starves children for money. They will care about your beach as much as they care about the dozens of children victims . Not at all!
Deborah Coffey says
LOL. This is the “DOGE” getting rid of WASTE that Trump promised????!! Spending millions over and over again because the MAGAs have “climate change derangement syndrome?”