NORTHEAST FLORIDA – Northeast Florida’s coastal communities, particularly in Flagler and St. Johns counties, have seen direct effects from hurricanes in recent years, with places like Summerhaven and South Ponte Vedra Beach proving to be especially vulnerable to storm surge and flooding.
RELATED: News4JAX Hurricane Page
To gain a better understanding of how these areas prepare for hurricanes ahead of the upcoming hurricane season, News4JAX traveled down the coast and spoke to officials who explained the importance of dune replenishment and sea walls, while emphasizing the need for those in evacuation zones to know their zone.
Flagler County
The road trip begins in Flagler County, where we spoke with Jonathon Lord, the county’s director of emergency management.
Lord has experienced his fair share of hurricanes and shared the one that stood out to him during his time in the role.
"I think Nicole, which is wasn’t that big of a storm," he recalls. "But what Nicole did to us was unique because we had Ian right before that, and Ian had taken out our protective dune system on the beach. So Nicole was able to cause some flooding toward homes and into homes along the coastline...and a storm of that size wouldn’t normally have that impact."
And Hurricane Ian’s effects on those dunes come at a cost.
Replenishing a dune can take upward of a year. Regulatory steps for federal, state, and local agencies must be met to pay for the replacement, which can be quite expensive.
Currently, Lord says there are multiple ongoing projects taking place along Flagler County’s beaches, primarily related to prior storm damage.
He adds that many dunes have been replenished and are deeper compared to previous years.
“The thicker dunes do help protect that infrastructure west of that dune system,” Lord explained. “So the roadway, the pipes, the electrical lines, the data lines, the homes, the businesses, the government facilities, all of that is protected.”
In 2024, Flagler County officials said it suffered an estimated $18.8 million in damages from Hurricane Milton, primarily through storm surge and erosion, and encouraged property owners to apply for disaster assistance through FEMA.
However, Lord says work has been done to take care of that damage.
“I know that the Florida Department of Transportation, particularly on that southern port again, has also put a sea wall in buried underneath the dune. So it’s not just a dune anymore,” he said.
The sea wall is hidden inside a dune that extends from Gamble Rogers State Park into Volusia County.
But the coast isn’t the only vulnerable area.
Crescent Lake, a rather large lake on the western edge of Flagler County, is also a part of Dead Lake and Hog Creek, and when the St. Johns River backs up, whether from an incoming storm or a hurricane, heavy rain can back up the lake and cause flooding.
St. Johns County
Another area that has seen quite a bit of coastal erosion from past hurricanes is St. Johns County.
Some areas susceptible to flooding include Saint Augustine and the Davis Shores community, especially when the ocean moves in.
Vilano and North Beach are also vulnerable because they have the ocean on one side.
“It’s the Atlantic coastline as well as the intercoastal,” Kelly Wilson, the county’s emergency management deputy director for the last 19 years, notes. "And we also have the St. Johns River that runs along the western border of our county, Hastings, Flagler Estates. Those folks have experienced flooding."
And some communities are more broken than others. Drone footage of Summerhaven taken by News4JAX shows a once-beautiful community of homes along the ocean eroding and falling apart.
However, regardless of where you live in St. Johns County, Wilson said now is the time to be prepared.
“Now is an excellent time to go ahead and get those preparations underway,” she said. “The first thing we want folks to do is know your zone. And what we mean is your evacuation zone. Do you live in one? And if you don’t know, a great way to do that is to go to our website, St. Johns County Emergency Management, and we have a Know Your Zone tool."
Whether you are in Flagler or St. Johns counties, remember that there’s no such thing as being prepared too early for hurricanes.
