As I recall hurricane activity over the years, we had very few direct hits but sometimes had beach erosion and storm surge if a storm made landfall to the west of us. Usually, this meant a landfall anywhere from Pensacola to the western edge of the AL coast. Almost every year, a hurricane would move in somewhere west of us. If a hurricane hit LA or TX, we typically had high waves but not much damage, if any. We had beach erosion, but the beaches repaired themselves over the next year, typically. No one paid that much attention to it, because that was simply the pattern of storms and the beach erosion didn't move anything around but sand. Not many people had storm surge because they weren't that close to the water. And beach houses were so casual that the water flowed in and then it flowed out...so what, if you weren't there for the event?
What is different now? If you look at historic photos of our area, you will notice that most of the older homes were built further away from the water's edge and they did not have these big decks or dune walk-over structures. Most of the time, we accessed the beach by trundling down the road to a public access. Most had no walkovers because there was a break in the dunes where one could walk onto the beach. Now we have the dunes eroded to create building sites, older homes expanded to twice their size by a huge cantilevered deck, and every single Gulf front house has a structure with stairs and landings, patios, etc. And the latest horror: seawalls. When we have storms, these things are the first to go and they take out a lot of the dunes with them.
I am just saying that beach erosion isn't anything new, but the preoccupation with property rights and values is something that didn't concern people that much during the old history of the South Walton beaches. There were no gated communities and it would have been perverse for someone to argue about another beach person walking across their property on a trek to or along the beach. What we did have in abundance was 30-ft. sand dunes that people never built on or dozed aside to create building pads, practically a forest of sea oats and other vegetation holding the dunes intact, and few people insured their beach houses. They owned them outright and lived with the idea of hurricanes and yes, the occasional rebuilding project.
A person would have been laughed at for putting in a swimming pool, a fireplace, or a seawall or building a house in a palmetto swamp or having a Surroundsound system or Plasma tv set at a beach house. We had black-and-white box sets with terrible reception, crinkled tinfoil on a set of rabbit ears. In short, we appreciated the beaches and didn't try to own them or build right on top of them. We didn't think of beach erosion as loss of property value, because we didn't think of the beaches as ours in an individual sense. And we didn't worry about whether all the tourists would stop coming if we had beach erosion. Of course, we would come back because that's what we did in the summer. We didn't go for the sand. We went for the experience and the company.
What I am saying is that nature hasn't changed...we have. While I enjoy many of the amenities the beaches offer today, along with the creature comforts of our home, sometimes I really miss the old days and the old values (as opposed to
property values).
I'll bet you would, too SJ, because you are obviously a very old soul.
He's no Mike Bettis
, but I just love the fact that he is a weather geek who can explain things to the masses. His entry on May 11 regarding the upcoming season was very interesting.
So people start stealing their neighbors' lettuce and stuff. Anyway, if that happens people won't be driving to the beach. 
