CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Nueces County beaches have lost a lot of sand over the past few years largely due to the effects of Hurricane Hanna in 2020. There's now an effort to try and widen those beaches which have become so narrow in many spots that there's only one lane left for traffic.
County officials admit that they've lost a lot of the beachfront on Padre Island due to erosion. However, they have a plan in place to try and re-nourish the beach if the money can be found to do the job.
Driving down the beach is a tight squeeze. Many tourists who would normally all be able to sit out on a nice white sandy beach instead have to place their chairs in the gulf waters.
Jace Tunnell is one of the scientists at the Harte Research Institute and says storms and wave action from Mother Nature is to blame.
"It's all part of the natural cycle," Tunnell said. "Now in certain situations, especially after like a hurricane and things like that, where there will be a lot of beach that's gone, if we want to be able to maintain that sometimes you have to come in and actually bring sand into the beach to be able to widen it."
Just to the north of the area is the City-owned stretch of beach in front of the seawall. It has been widened thanks to a project that dredged sand out of the Packery Channel and placed it there.
"When Hurricane Hanna hit, it did a lot of erosion on our beach and just the orientation the way it came in it took a lot of sand away," Coastal Parks Director Scott Cross said.
Cross says he's already working to get a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers to widen the beach with tons of sand that will have to be brought in from somewhere else.
"Then it's a waiting game for the sand," he said. "Where's the sand gonna come from? You know there's lots of discussion -- there's no sand directly off shore here that we could benefit from it's a clay bottom out there so the sand would have to be brought in by a hopper dredge, looks like a tanker. It's got sand on it and they pump it on your beach."
That project could cost somewhere north of $20 million. That price tag is one stumbling block and the other is the permitting process. That ordeal could take a year and a half to complete. Until those obstacles are cleared, your trip down the county beach is going to keep you on a straight and narrowing path.