The city of North Myrtle Beach dune restoration project is underway.
The $616,000 project with A.O. Hardee & Son as the contractor will use up to 60,000 cubic yards of sand to restore sand dunes from 45th Avenue South to 48th Avenue South and from 42nd Avenue North to 55th Avenue North.
Dunes is these areas were severely eroded or destroyed by Hurricane Matthew, leaving oceanfront structures exposed to potentially damaging storm surge.
The contractor started in the Cherry Grove section and is working north to south along the beach.
Sand used in the project comes from a dredging spoils basin located on Little River Neck Road. The sand currently in the basin is from the Cherry Grove dredging project. Prior to dredging the canals, sand located in the canals was tested and found to be compatible with existing dune and beach sand.
Street trucks haul sand from the spoils basin to the beach off-road vehicles carry the sand along the beach to the dune line. From there, bulldozers work to achieve the desired dune berm configuration, which is 7 feet high by 35 feet wide.
There may be some intermittent closures of sections of beach, particularly when the tide is high.
The dune restoration work follows the recently completed $10.6 million U.S. Army Corps of Engineers emergency beach renourishment project, which focused on protecting previously exposed oceanfront structures from storm surge.
