- April 17, 2024
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The Flagler Beach pier has withstood a lot: pounding waves, tropical storms and hundreds of people tromping along it daily. But the worst damage has come from something much smaller: tiny organisms called marine borers that gnaw through the wood pilings.
The Flagler Beach City Commission voted at its regular Thursday night meeting to enter a contract with Structural Preservation LLC for improvements to the pier that will help it withstand the abuse, on the condition that money from FEMA, which has proposed funding 75% of the project’s estimated cost, actually comes through.
The project would reinforce some pilings and replace others, leaving the pier more resistant to the termite-like critters.
Several pilings have come off entirely over the past few years. In a presentation before the commission, David King, vice president of consulting engineering company Quentin L. Hampton Associates, showed a picture of one lying on the beach after it broke away from the pier and floated up on the sand in November 2012. The interior was black with rot caused by the borers.
“That’s the main damage that we see out there,” he said. “The pilings will get pounded by the waves, but a good piling will stand up to that until these borers get in them.”
The city has committed $908,251 to the pier project, and $681,188 would come from FEMA. That money was originally set aside for repairs after Tropical Storm Fay damaged the pier in 2008. The city is also expected to receive $160,000 from the Tourist Development Council, and the city of Bunnell has pledged $2,000 for the project.
City Manager Bruce Campbell recommended that the commission approve the project in its entirety, rather than cherry-pick certain aspects of it. Some of the pier’s pilings were repaired or replaced in 2009, he said, but that work wasn’t enough to stop its continued degradation. The current project would be more comprehensive and last longer.
King said the comprehensive option would “re-establish the original structural integrity of the pier and then some,” though a big hurricane could still take it down.
“It’s a much more expensive system, but it will last much longer than the other attempts,” he said.
The work would require closures of the pier, but most of them would be partial and leave at least half of the pier’s width open.
The bid by Structural Preservation LLC was the least expensive of three the city received after bidding opened Oct. 4.
