Another hot spot is the beach north of Gordon Pass. Property owners there are proposing to build more wooden groins there. Beach restorers in Lee County have been stymied in their efforts to get more sand on parts of their beaches because of slow progress of getting federal funding, said Roland Ottolini, the director of the county's natural resources division. That has left some beaches there vulnerable, he said. Seawalls on Fort Myers Beach already have failed.
Hurricanes also can damage the beach itself.
Much depends, though, on the direction of the storm, its intensity and how quickly it is moving. Hurricane Andrew moved too quickly south of Miami Beach to cause much damage at all, Dean said. Hurricanes can reshape the landscape altogether. Dean said a hurricane early in the 20th century was responsible for cutting Redfish Pass in Lee County. In 1988, Tropical Storm Keith blew off the western end of Naples Pier and took away two feet of beach depth from Naples beach, Staiger said.