Big beach expansion coming to Fort Myers Beach: What to know

It's time to rebuild parts of Fort Myers Beach, and contractors started on a $22 million renourishment project last week on the island town of 5,600.

Although Hurricane Ian ripped away giant swaths of sand from the island, this renourishment project has been scheduled for years, well before the devastating storm made landfall and crippled the community.

Town of Fort Myers Beach project manager Chadd Chustz said the project is designed to protect the island from a 25-year storm.

"It's 10 years of erosion, so every decade to 15 years you'll have a planned renourishment to recoup what was lost of the beach," Chustz said. "It wasn't intended to replace sand necessarily lost to Ian."

Hurricane Ian ripped away much of the shoreline (about 220,000 cubic yards of sand) and rearranged what was left, pushing sand up and over the island and onto the mainland.

The island needs the extra sand for a variety of reasons. One, it produces a large area for people to gather and recreate, but, more importantly, it provides a layer of protection against future storms.

Project designed for quarter-century storm

The beach is designed for a 25-year storm, which means it's ready for a storm that could be expected to make landfall every quarter-century.

"We're a lot better than we were right after Hurrican Ian," Chustz said. "The (Federal Emergency Management Agency) berms were put in and they were designed for a five-year storm, and that helped with Hurricane Idalia. But we're definitely very susceptible right now."

Category 4 Hurricane Ian was a 1,000-year storm, although Category 4 Hurricane Charley (2004) made landfall in the same county just 20 years ago.

So, Lee County has experienced two major hurricanes over the course of 20 years.

Catastrophic events are different

To be clear: the Fort Myers Beach shoreline would not withstand a direct hit from either of those systems and is not designed to absorb such storms.

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"You can't do anything for the catestrophic events," Chustz said. "You can just try to mitigate the wave action."

The sand will come from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, about a mile-and-a-half from the island.

Construction will start at the north end of Estero Island near Bowditch Pointe Park and work to the south, toward the middle of the island.

Ahtna Marine Construction Corporation is the town's contractor for the project.

New $22 million shoreline coming to Fort Myers Beach

"They are building pipeline and transporting it out of the borrow area, and once that's set they'll stage the dredge plan and start connecting the pipe pieces together to make landfall on the beach," Chustz said. "It's a sandbar area that was used in the 2011 project and it's about 20 feet deep there."

The $22 million project is being funded mostly by the state ($14 million) with the town, local share-cost projects and the Lee County Tourism Development Council funding the rest.

"We're very lucky to have already had this in the pipeline and our permits submitted in the year of the hurricane," Chustz said. "So we're very fortunate to have that all lined up."

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He said the town is working with Turtle Time Inc. to monitor sea turtle nesting on the beach and to relocate nests that are laid in construction areas.

"We also have shorebird nest monitoring," Chustz said. ""Hopefully we're ringing in the new year with a new beach."

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Big beach expansion coming to Fort Myers Beach: What to know