Sea Oats Beach Islamorada’s Weak Link
By Robert Silk, The Key West Citizen Staff
Sea Oats Beach, Islamorada - after Wilma
The vulnerable section of the Overseas Highway along Sea Oats Beach was exposed anew when Hurricane Ike brushed the Florida Keys. Moderate tropical-storm force winds and a 2- to 3-foot sea-level rise were all it took to send water and debris over much of the roadway, prompting officials to close one lane for several hours.
Don’t expect that section of highway, spanning Mile Marker 74 to 75 on Lower Matecumbe Key, to be fortified anytime soon.
“Folks would like to see that area high and dry in any storm event, but I think there are other engineering concerns that make this the best we can do at this time,” said John Palenchar, a Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) environmental permits coordinator.
The waves on Sept. 9 overtopped the beach, including a newly constructed dune line, leaving seaweed, lobster traps, logs and other debris on the roadway. High tide that evening also reached the shoulder of the roadway, forcing more cleanup the next morning.
The flooding was only the most recent in a series of storm-related events that have earned the Sea Oats Beach vicinity the reputation as the weakest link on the Overseas Highway.
“Bar none, it is,” said Islamorada Fire Chief William Wagner III, who also heads the village’s emergency operations. “It is tested up to a moderate tropical force [wind], but above that, we are always going to have an inundation as long as we have winds coming from the south.”
In 1998, the roadway was drowned by Hurricane Georges, a Category 2 storm that made landfall in Key West. It was inundated again — twice — in 2005, the first time by Hurricane Dennis, then by Hurricane Rita, both of which brought only tropical-storm conditions to the Islamorada area.
Rita’s inundation came in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when the national media was on a hyper-hurricane alert.
As debris and water closed the roadway — cutting off Key West and Marathon from the mainland for several hours — then-Islamorada Mayor Bob Johnson took to the scene, pleading before rolling CNN cameras for state funding to raise the road.
In the months that followed, FDOT officials talked about committing the resources for such a project. But anticipated costs and concerns that elevating the road would redirect water to low-lying homes on the bay side of the highway eventually led the agency to abandon the idea. Sea Oats Beach is also a turtle nesting site, making permitting more complicated.
FDOT instead opted for a less sweeping fix, spending $6 million last year on an erosion-control project that involved laying a series of interconnected concrete blocks below the beach that were designed to hold the sand in place. The project also included shoulder-widening as well as construction of a dune line a few feet high.
The agency’s goal was to protect the roadway from being undermined by a major storm. Keeping water off the top of the road surface was not the focus.
In the aftermath of Ike, Palenchar said there are no indications that FDOT has had a change of heart.
“My sense is that, given all the constraints at this location, this is the best strategy,” he said.
Wagner said more needs to be done.
“We have been dealing with the DOT since 2004 to let them know this is an enormous vulnerability to the county,” he said.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.