Cape San Blas Real Estate Blog

Although the county was able to quickly reopen Cape San Blas Road to traffic again by late Monday afternoon after closing it at 10 a.m., the rocks at Stumphole took quite a thumping and FDOT will hopefully make repairs quickly.  I saw three of their crew members out yesterday with measuring equipment so hopefully that will be the case.

I can’t stress enough how well the beach restoration did its job. I only wish the storms could have held off just a few weeks longer to allow the entire project to have been completed in front of everyone’s homes. Paula Pickett, Executive Director of the Tourist Development Council, echoed this sentiment:

” . . . we are very pleased with the performance of the beach. There was certainly some loss, though we do expect the majority of sand to be in the system still and come back on shore within the next week or so. This is assuming that there are no further storms to take it away. The escarpments (clifting) of the sand was minimum and the waves’ impact was held to a minimum due to the gradual sloping of the shoreline, as opposed to the previous flat beach that allowed the waves to basically cut into the duneline”.

“I personally feel great losses were avoided by having the beach in place and can’t wait for that level of protection to be along the entire coastline”.

Sorry, kids – you’re going back to school today. Cape San Blas Road is re-opened and once again traffic is passing through Stumphole.

Overall I think the beach looks good, admittedly there was ersosion but it could have been much, much, worse.  Here’s the latest update from the beach restoration website blog posted at 9 a.m.:

The conditions have been calm since the passage of Gustov. This is great considering that entire beach was under water. Once the swells past things improved quickly. Manson’s tugboat “Dietz” is heading out first thing this morning to check on our sublines and hookups.

The Bayport left the safe waters of Tampa yesterday around 4:00 p.m.   The return trip will take 25-30 hours. I expect them sail in to the St.Joe Company Dock and perform the necessary repairs on the port drag arm before returning to dredging operations. During the dredge repairs the Bull Gang will check the offshore float hose assemblies to determine if they are ready for service after the storm.

At this time all of the beach equipment has weathered the storm and the beach crew should be ready to go back to work when the dredge returns.

The Manson Crew will need to re-assemble all of the shorepipe and   re-install grade stakes before beach fill placement can resume.

Today or early tomorrow we will get a better look at the beach to determine impacts from the storm.

I have to admit being several hundred miles from New Orleans we weren’t expecting all that much action from Gustav, but the wind has been blowing hard and steady since late Friday afternoon and waves continue to pound away at our beaches even at mid-day on Labor Day.

The combination of high tide, and bit of storm surge, and wind just blasting out of south-east washed away enough rocks at Stumphole that the Sheriff closed it this morning around 10 a.m. At that point they were letting people leave, but only property owners were being allowed back in. I’m hearing now that it is closed period while they work on repairs. I’ll let you know when I hear it has reopened.  (I apologize for the poor quality of these photos but my camera is at the office which of course I can’t get to this afternoon, so I had to shoot these using my cell phone).

The good news is that beach renourishment did its job and saved homes. Although the surf has eaten away at the beach the water is no where near homes where renourishment has been completed. I stopped by Cape Palms Park to see how the folks at Cape Shoals fared and was thrilled to see the beach in such good shape.

Before renourishment, there would have been waves washing up under the pilings of these homes from a storm like this so this is just wonderful to see.  Here’s a shot looking southward from the same vantage point.

Unfortunately, the renourishment program hasn’t yet reached the folks on the southern end of the Cape down approaching Stumphole and they have once again taken a serious beating. I stopped by the Sunrise Sunset townhouses to take these shots.

Over on the bay side the surf has been extremely rough and high all weekend long, at times with rolling waves breaking on shore. One of the docks at Ovation was half way under water at one point this morning.

The tide has barely receded at all and the next high tide is due around 4. We are still getting bands of strong wind but oddly have had virtually no rain from this system. My rain guage down at the end of our dock was bone dry this morning.

We’re glad to have been spared from heavier damage, and our thoughts and prayers are with our neighbors to the west of us and hope that Gustav spares them from serious damage.