CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. — Charlotte County beaches remain closed after Hurricane Milton while the county plans beach re-nourishment projects. At the same time, red tide blooms have been identified off the county’s coast.
Charlotte County’s two beaches, Englewood Beach and the Charlotte Beach Park, were both severely affected by Hurricane Milton. Englewood Beach on Manasota Key is especially impacted as storm surge degraded the coastline and deposited sand across the island.
Watch Fox 4's Alex Orenczuk report on Charlotte County's beaches:
After Hurricane Helene, the county began using the Englewood Beach parking lot as a sand drop-off site where homeowners and contractors could bring sand deposited on their property.
Now three weeks after Milton, the pile of sand, which has grown to multiple stories high, is being sifted through.
“There is several thousand cubic yards of sand in the parking lot and now it's being sifted,” said Brian Gleason, Communications Director for the county. “Only a fraction of the sand that is in the parking lot has been sifted yet it's going to take a long time to do it. It's an $8 million job and it's going to take a while.”
After the sand is sifted it will be put back on the beach in a re-nourishment project, but before that happens the beach itself will need to be raked for debris. He said the beach will remain closed for NOW.
“There could be nails, could be glass, could be twigs — it’s just not a safe place to be so we ask people just to stay away from there,” said Gleason.
While the county deals with the dangers on shore, off-shore blooms of red tide have been identified.
Water Quality Manager of Charlotte County, Brandon Moody, said the blooms are being monitored. Additional samples are being taken to see if the blooms are moving closer to the coastline.
“At this point given the levels that we have seen at the moment we are currently just keeping an eye on it,” said Moody. “We have been receiving some anecdotal reports as early as earlier this week regarding dead fish around Lemon Bay and some respiratory irritation so we actually have contractors out today (Oct.31) collecting samples from various parts of Lemon Bay.”
Moody said the results of sampling can be found on the FWC Red Tide Current Status Map. Additional samples will be taken to monitor the severity of the blooms.
“It can impact fishes, birds, if it gets big enough,” said Moody. “That's why we are monitoring and seeing how this one progresses. They can vary wildly in intensity, we may have a very low grade bloom, it may come and go, or it could spin up and be worse.”
