Florida digs out of mountains of sand swept in by back-to-back hurricanes

BRADENTON BEACH, Florida — 

When a hurricane sets its sights connected Florida, storm-weary residents whitethorn deliberation of catastrophic wind, hammering rainfall and unsafe tempest surge. Mounds of soil swallowing their homes? Not truthful much.

That's the world for immoderate aft Hurricanes Helene and Milton clobbered Florida's Gulf Coast with back-to-back hits successful little than 2 weeks. Storm surge arsenic precocious arsenic 3 meters swept mountains of soil into communities — successful immoderate areas, 1.5 meters precocious oregon higher.

The fine, achromatic soil helps marque Florida's beaches among the champion successful the world. But the almighty storms person turned the precious commodity into a costly nuisance, with soil creating literal barriers to betterment arsenic homeowners and municipalities excavation their mode out.

"I've ne'er seen soil similar this," said Scott Bennett, a contractor who has worked successful tempest betterment since 2005's Hurricane Katrina. "Wind, rain, water, but ne'er sand."

The greeting aft Hurricane Milton crashed ashore, the roads of Bradenton Beach, astir an hour's thrust southbound of Tampa, were lined with sandbanks little than a metre high, surrounding immoderate bungalows. The views of the Old Florida formation municipality were not dissimilar those aft a blustery Midwestern blizzard.

"The champion mode to picture it, it's similar getting 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 1.8 meters) of snowfall up north," said Jeremi Roberts, a subordinate of the State Emergency Response Team surveying the harm that day.

Another hr south, Ron and Jean Dyer said the storms blew astir 0.9 meters of soil up against their condo gathering connected Venice Island.

"The formation conscionable moved implicit everything," Ron Dyer said.

It had taken dozens of volunteers equipped with shovels and wheelbarrows 2 days to excavation each the soil retired of the condo's excavation aft Hurricane Helene, lone to spot Milton capable it backmost in, helium said.

"They conscionable kept digging and wheeling and digging and wheeling. … They were determination for 2 days doing that," helium said. "We got to bash it each implicit again."

Storm betterment contractor Larry West estimates that his squad volition bash astir $300,000 worthy of enactment conscionable to cleanable up each the soil and debris near down astatine 1 of the condo buildings he's restoring successful Manasota Key, astir 56 kilometers southbound of Sarasota. He expects galore spot owners, particularly those who don't person flood insurance, volition person to wage retired of pouch for this benignant of cleanup.

"The mediocre homeowner who's going to person to walk $150,000 cleaning up, that's going to wounded them hard," West said.

West said helium is not definite wherever to instrumentality the sand, aft helium heard that a section parkland that Charlotte County officials designated arsenic a drop-off tract was filling up with the stuff. According to the county, 2 sites stay unfastened for dropping disconnected sand.

"Right present I'm gathering mountains successful their parking area," West said of the condo analyzable he's restoring. "We're conscionable benignant of waiting to find retired if they're gonna person america transport it to a antithetic location."

Officials successful hard-hit Pinellas County, location to St. Petersburg, are inactive crunching the numbers connected conscionable however large of a wound Helene and Milton took retired of the coastline there, but region Public Works manager Kelli Hammer Levy puts the existent estimation astatine 765,000 cubic meters of soil lost.

"A batch of measurement has been lost, and that's our main interest present close now," she told the county's Tourism Development Council. "It's hard to benignant of enactment affirmative with immoderate of this stuff. I cognize the pictures are not what we privation to see."

For perspective, a 2018 formation renourishment task to enactment up the county's coastline with 994,000 cubic meters of soil outgo much than $50 million, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Levy is hopeful that overmuch of the displaced soil tin beryllium repurposed. Pinellas officials are encouraging residents to cart their soil close backmost retired onto the formation — arsenic agelong arsenic it's clean.

"Again, we conscionable request to region debris. I've seen immoderate piles retired determination with room cabinets successful it," Levy said. "We're going to person a occupation if we person a batch of that worldly retired there."

The region has besides opened a drop-off determination wherever residents tin permission soil for workers to surface and clean, oregon dispose of if it's contaminated, nether guidance from the state's Department of Environmental Protection.

In the meantime, Florida residents are continuing to excavation retired of the storm-driven sand, galore of them by hand.

"Every shovelful is heavy," said West, the operation contractor. "This is horrendous, arsenic acold arsenic the cleanup."