Did the beach berms work on Fort Myers Beach?

Putting our resilience and our berms to the test, Southwest Florida is looking to turn the page on Tropical Storm Debby and recover from flooded roads and beach erosion.

Millions of dollars have been spent on beach berms, which protect properties and businesses along the beach from storm surges.

“Could have been much worse if the berms were not there,” said Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers.

Frequent visitors like Barb Cordell agree with Allers.

“If they had not done it, the water yesterday would have gone much higher,” said Cordell.

She said this was the first storm she saw on Fort Myers Beach.

“Interesting watching the wind and the rain, pretty cool,” said Cordell. “We were stuck inside all day, but it was OK.”

Cordell told WINK News she’d seen excavators and shovels working on the berm project.

All in all, 53,000 tons of sand and millions of dollars were used to build berms from Crescent Park, near Margaritaville, to Bowditch Point Park.

You can see from our WINK News drone the berms did flatten after Sunday’s storm surge, but allers said they’re happy to see the project working.

“The emergency berms are in place. We were set to start on the beach re-nourishment this week. You’ll see sand being pumped,” said Allers. “You can only move as fast as the dollars are there to make things happen.”

The renourishment project Allers is talking about is designed to last about 25 years, while these berms are expected to last five years.