Piles of sand on the street are making life difficult on Sunset Beach

SUNSET BEACH, Fla. (WFLA) — First it was the hurricane, then the storm surge, now piles of sand and debris are making life miserable for the people who live on Sunset Beach and Treasure Island.

“We have sand in piles from 8 to 13 feet high,” said Gary Menzel.

Because of the sand in front of his home, he can’t bring storm debris out of his home.

“My neighbor has a car in the garage that’s totaled, because of the water level. We can’t get them them out,” said Menzel.

The sand is also preventing contractors from getting to his home to begin the process of recovery.

“As we seek to have people lined up for these services, they all tell us the same thing, even if they were willing to walk down, which most of them can’t because they need their equipment, they are not willing to try to deal with this,” said Menzel.

His neighbor says the sand is only making their problems worse.

“It’s overwhelming, we come out every day and you think you’d get used to it and every day, it’s worse,” said Donna Fleece.

Pinellas County officials say help is on the way.

“We have the National Guard coming in to help us move sand to locations where we can then get it back into the beach system, but it is a very heavy lift to do this. Our contractor, Gator Dredging, arrived on site last night and they started moving the sand this morning. Their plan is to have that road, the sand, consolidated to the South End by Friday,” said Kelli Levy with Pinellas County.

Gary Menzel says that’s the news he was hoping to hear.

“You could not give us better news. Truly,” said Menzel.

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