There are reports of widespread beach erosion in Brevard County after Hurricane Dorian.
On Canova Beach in Melbourne so much sand had washed away that the high tide was lapping at the grassy dunes, leaving little room for any beach blanket. High-rise hotels loomed mere feet from the ocean.
Randall Parkinson of Florida International University says it’s an important loss as the sand protects coastal infrastructure from the high winds and pounding waves of hurricanes.
“It creates a buffer to the energy and height of the storm surge. So its very presence when all the energy and breaking waves is attacking that dune and that beach, if it wasn’t there it would be attacking what is behind it.”
Across Brevard County the damage is estimated to be in the millions of dollars.
