Hurricane recovery at Sanibel’s Lighthouse Beach Park sees major progress

Reporter: Jillian Haggerty
Published: Updated:

Sanibel is making significant progress in its recovery efforts following recent hurricanes. Lighthouse Beach Park is a key example of the island’s strides toward resilience.

The beach renourishment at Lighthouse Beach Park is complete, marking one of the first locations on the island to finish this process and reopen parking lots.

“The short answer to that is this work is complete, so we did approximately one hundred and nineteen pounds of sand around the Sanibel lighthouse,” said Holly Milbrandt, the director of natural resources for the City of Sanibel.

Milbrandt shared before and after photos to illustrate the progress made.

The next phase involves dune planting.

“We are working through the procurement there to begin planting approximately twenty-eight thousand native dune plants at Lighthouse Beach Park in the next couple of weeks,” said Milbrandt.

These 28,000 plants play a crucial role in stabilizing the beach during storms.

Another key step in the recovery is gully repairs.

“So we did that in two phases; the work occurring on the east end of the island that was staged both from lighthouse beach park and using the Donax access is complete that was completed in about 9 workdays and was about 21 thousand tons slightly under our estimated tonnage, we are nearly on completion of the second part which is being done near the West Wind Inn,” said Milbrandt.

Officials are committed to restoring Sanibel to its former glory as a paradise island.

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