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Beach Erosion Challenges Businesses, Beach Patrols

Posted on: Thursday, 30 March 2006, 00:00 CST

By Fraser Sherman, The Destin Log, Fla.

Mar. 29--Destin's dwindling beaches aren't a problem for homeowners and tourists alone.

Beach services, condo managers, police and firefighters said in interviews that the lack of space on Holiday Isle's eroded waterfront is an increasing obstacle to their daily operations.

"It's very, very limited," Jetty East manager Philip Lofé said. "Of our 800 feet of beach, we probably have a maximum of 250 linear feet (left). Instead of 200-300 feet deep ... we've got about 20 feet."

Lofé said that in areas where Holiday Isle Beach Services would normally set up 70-100 chairs and umbrellas, there's now room for only 20 or so.

Hurricanes and tropical storms the past couple of years have eroded beaches in Northwest Florida so badly in some areas that the water's edge is very close to homes and other structures.

"We're doing a little bit of business at Jetty East, but they hardly have a beach," Holiday Isle Beach Services' Steve Hill said. "(When) Jetty East is completely full, it's not going to be pretty."

Hill said it's worse whenever the south wind blows because that pushes the water further up the beach: "That could be 30-40 feet that disappears, (and) in the summer the wind doesn't blow from the north."

Destin Fire Chief Tuffy Dixon said erosion on parts of Holiday Isle has become bad enough that the department's beach safety patrols don't even have room to drive a small ATV.

"To give an example, right now you can't even go by Jetty East, you have to go around it," Dixon said. "If someone was in distress near the jetties, we'd have to go around to get them."

Okaloosa County Sheriff's Deputy Carol Chevallier said the shrinking beaches affect deputies' beach patrols and response times just as severely: "Depending on what kind of days, what kind of surf is coming in, we're trapped in different areas. We can't go past Jetty East (but) if we get on at Destin Pointe we can't go around the building."

Chevallier said that instead of driving up the beach on an ATV, it's sometimes quicker for deputies to leave the beach, hop in a truck and drive.

"It makes it a little challenging," she said.

The beach restoration project, which is under way in Walton County and will progress into Destin later this spring, will not help the beach on Holiday Isle. The project will stop at Henderson Beach State Park.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Destin Log, Fla.

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Source: The Destin Log (Destin, Fl.)

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