Posted on December 22, 2020
Crews are hard at work in Fort Myers Beach a month after Tropical Storm Eta damaged Lynn Hall Park.
A dune renourishment project is underway at the beach, which is closed from the fishing pier to the north end of the park.
Work began Saturday, and Lee County plans to wrap up by Christmas Eve, but the county’s parks and recreation director, Jesse Lavender, said he believes it may finish ahead of schedule.
During the project, the north end of the parking lot will be closed as heavy equipment and conveyors haul in sand, but restrooms and shower facilities will stay open, the release says.
Lavender said about 54 regular parking spaces remain open with an additional four handicapped spaces.
The county hired contractor Earth Tech Enterprises to haul about 6,000 tons – or 300 dump truck loads – of sand from a mine in Immokalee.
“This is a smaller renourishment project and we typically don’t dredge,” Lavender said. “We wanted to get this filled in as soon as possible and doing it from land is much easier.”
While a portion of the beach is closed, the fishing pier remains open as does Rudy’s Treasure Chest, the gift shop and fishing store located on the pier.
Cheryl Duffy, who works at Rudy’s, said the project has not affected business.
She said just a section of the beach, from the pier north to the Edison Beach House, is closed. With half the parking lot closed, there is still street parking and more spaces available north at Bowditch Point Park.
“Normally people can walk through (the north end of the lot), but now they have to detour through the parking lot to the sidewalk,” she said.
Tropical Storm Eta brought heavy rains and wind to the area last month. High winds clocked in between 53-55 mph, according to the National Weather Service, with rainfall totals measured around 4 inches in Lee County.
“It just washed out a ton of the sand,” Duffy said.
Lavender said Eta took out at least a third to half of the dune walk-overs the county had installed. Walk-overs are paths built over the dunes to protect them and keep them in place rather than walk-throughs that cut through and displace the dunes.
Dunes that are kept in place can hold back any water creeping toward the parking lots due to storm surge during large storms.
“We did the dune walk-over project to fill in gaps in the dune system at the park so when we get these weather events, the water does not go through the lot to the road and impact the businesses and motels across the street to the park entrance,” he said. “That is what used to occur when had those walk-overs.”
The walk-overs worked as planned during Eta, as Lavender said no water made it to the parking lot.
The funding for the $200,000 project comes from the tourist development tax, which is a 5% tax collected from short-term lodging and paid mainly by visitors.
“Other nearby county sites available to beachgoers include Bowditch Point Park at the north end of Fort Myers Beach and Crescent Beach Family Park, which is just south of the Fort Myers Beach Fishing Pier,” the release says.
Source: news-press
