Posted on July 12, 2023
Along sections of West Beach in Gulf Shores there seem to be more tourists than sand forcing some to get creative by setting up shop where the beach used to be.
“I noticed when we got out here the distance from the dune to the water was a lot shorter than what I’d seen before,” said Eli Hightower vacationing in Gulf Shores.
Now a $22 million project to build back the beaches in Gulf Shores, through Gulf State Park and Orange Beach could start later this Summer.
“Our goal is to start mid to late August,” said city engineer Mark Acreman. “Obviously it will depend on the availability of the contractor’s vessels but our goal is to get started on this late August.”
In March, we showed you the dramatic loss of sand on a section of beach in Gulf Shores. Funding to rebuild hurricane-damaged beaches had been delayed by Federal Emergency Management Agency all while the waves and wind continued to eat away at the sand, dunes and anything else in the way.
Spoils from the dredge pumps in Little Lagoon in the Spring helped a little but the renourishment project will return the beaches to what they once were. “They can do anywhere from a thousand to 15 hundred feet a day of beach and then they move down the beach and it’s an ongoing process they don’t stop,” said Acreman.
Once they start, it will take another six months or so to finish the project that will not only build back the beach but repair the dune system including sand fencing and planting sea oats and other native plants.
While all that means very little to folks visiting this summer, “The weather’s nice we are still out here enjoying each other’s company,” said Hightower, it could make all the difference in the world to have a bigger buffer before the next storm comes.
