Residents living away from Duval County beaches may have wondered why City Council was so quick to approve $7.5 million last fall to restore dunes damaged by Hurricane Matthew.
But Christopher Creed, vice president and senior engineer for coastal engineering consulting firm Olsen Associates Inc., says healthy beaches are essential to Florida’s tourist economy.
“The beach is the foundation of that in the state of Florida,” Creed said Tuesday at an Economic Roundtable of Jacksonville luncheon at Jacksonville University.
Creed pointed to a 2015 study by the Florida Legislature’s Office of Economic and Demographic Research that determined the beaches account for 25 percent of the state’s tourism “brand,” even higher than theme parks.
“Lots of things rely on us having healthy beaches,” he said.
The dunes at Jacksonville Beach did their job in protecting property from storm surge damage during Hurricane Matthew, but Creed said they need to be replenished before the next big storm.
“For all the damage that did occur, it was not all that bad,” he said.
And with dredging equipment already in place for a scheduled beach renourishment project when the hurricane came, the city was able to save money by starting the process without needing to bring in new equipment.
“Quick action was essential,” said Creed.
The project will resume in May.
Although federal programs to renourish beaches began in the mid-1960s and a Shore Protection Project has been in place for Jacksonville since 1978, the local beaches have been dealing with permanent damage since the late 19th century.
Creed said an 1890 project to build a jetty at the mouth of the St. Johns River interrupted the normal north and south flow of sand along the coast and still impacts the beaches to this day.
“We haven’t fixed the problem. We’re just fighting it with the placement of sand,” he said.
Creed did say the proposed project to deepen the river inland won’t have an additional impact on the beaches.
“The damage is done. The damage was done in the late 1800s,” he said.
Also at Tuesday’s luncheon, Steve Bitar, chief of underwriting and agency services for Citizens Property Insurance Corp., said the overall damage from Hurricane Matthew was not as bad as his company feared as the storm approached.
“For the most part, we were very lucky with the impact of Matthew,” he said.
Citizens is a nonprofit corporation created by the Florida Legislature to provide insurance for homeowners who can’t get coverage from other companies, so many of the homes are in vulnerable areas.
As Citizens officials watched the storm, Bitar said the company estimated 302,000 policyholders could be in Matthew’s path throughout the state and the number of claims for the company could reach 75,000.
As it turned out, Citizens handled 3,503 Matthew-related claims totaling about $15 million, he said. The largest number of claims — 1,292 — came in Volusia County. Duval County only had 125.
However, Bitar doesn’t regret the preparations Citizens made for the worst-case scenario.
“You have to be prepared,” he said. “You’d rather be safe than not.”