Pinellas County's beaches continue to erode as renourishment plans remain at a standstill

When Hurricane Idalia slammed into the Big Bend last month, it brought with it record storm surge to a wide swath of the Gulf Coast. Pinellas County beaches — nearly 200 miles from where Hurricane Idalia made landfall — experienced some of the worst erosion seen by local residents and coastal researchers in decades. Some of the sand dunes were completely wiped out. The storm made an ongoing problem much worse. Even before Idalia, efforts to renourish the beaches have been complicated by a standoff over property rights.