Palm Beach closes 2 public beach access points due to 'significant' erosion

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Visitors to Palm Beach should be aware that "significant beach erosion" has temporarily closed public beach access points at two areas.

Officials said that Brazilian and Chilean avenues are closed after erosion occurred following recent weather events.

WATCH BELOW: 'Significant' erosion closes 2 beach access points on Palm Beach

Despite the closures, the town said that lifeguards will remain on-site to support public safety and provide guidance to beachgoers during the closure.

"We have to be here because even though the beaches are closed, there's still people getting down on the beach," said Nicolo Lugo, an Ocean Rescue lifeguard and training officer for Town of Palm Beach. "We just had a lady down on the beach just two minutes ago. You know, it just takes one slip up to turn into a disaster."

The erosion was so severe, Ocean Rescue lifted the lifeguard stands up off the sand and onto the sidewalk to prevent the ocean from washing them away.

"As soon as you try to step off our boardwalk, it's going to be five or six foot drop off, which is very dangerous in itself," Lugo said.

Residents and visitors are encouraged by the town to use nearby alternate beach access points until conditions improve and repairs can be completed.

"It's for everyone's safety, including ours," said Lugo.

Coastal Coordinator for the Town, Sara Westphal, said the erosion is unusual for this time of year.

"We've been seeing a lot of erosion lately, the month of March, we've been having a lot of weather events, it is unusual," said Westphal.

She said it's not only impacting beach access and shoreline protection, but could also potentially threaten sea turtle nesting season, which takes place between March and October and depends on a stable shoreline.

"We have a lot of nests that occur on the island. When we see a lot of erosion, that just is taking away their habitat," said Westphal. "We would see a decrease in the amount of turtle nests that we have."

Westphal said the erosion is also impacting progress on a coastal renourishment project meant to restore about a mile of beach between Seminole Avenue and Banyan Road.

Westphal said crews are just 36% percent through dumping nearly half a million cubic feet of sand, which equates to approximately 650,000 tons, or 43,000 dump trucks full.

"Because of the weather delays, we're just trying to work against time at this point," said Westphal.

Westphal said the storms have now pushed the project past its original end-of-April deadline, forcing the town to seek an extension into May to finish.

"We have started conversations with the regulatory agencies to see if we can get an extension into May, it’s just kind of dependent on sea turtle nesting season and realistically what we can get done in the time frame that we have," said Westphal. "But we’re feeling positive about it and we’ve got a good team on it to get it done."

Westphal said they will issue updates as additional information becomes available, but added closures could remain in place until crews are able to replace the sand, which she said could take days or even weeks.

"We're taking it day by day, seeing what the weather does," said Westphal. "Just crossing our fingers for better weather at this point."

Beachgoers, like the Hickey family visiting Palm Beach from Buffalo, were surprised to see the beach accesses closed.

"We wanted to go to the beach, and that did not work out," joked Sarah Hickey.

Locals like Kristen Cody said they were stunned by the power of waves crashing into the shoreline, telling WPTV she had never seen erosion here like this before.

"Crazy seas today. The wind has been wild for a few days, so it's kind of amazing," said Cody. The erosion has been wild, like, where we are, people are putting, like, sandbags up, you know, trying to figure out how to save their homes, basically, if they live on the beach. So it's pretty wild."

WPTV reported last month that the Town of Palm Beach was working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a beach re-nourishment project aimed at restoring the shoreline.