TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. — One year after Hurricane Idalia made landfall and sent floodwaters into thousands of homes, some of Pinellas County’s beaches remain in a very vulnerable state.

On Sunset Beach on Treasure Island, just a fraction of the sand dunes that are keeping the ocean water from reaching Gulf Blvd remain.

Jason Beisel, with the City of Treasure Island, said before Hurricane Idalia hit, the mature dunes were full of vegetation and had been doing their job of protecting the nearby neighborhoods during storms. That changed on August 30, 2023, when roughly 50% of the dunes were wiped out in the hurricane.

In the weeks following, Pinellas County pumped $26 million into a restoration project to rebuild the dunes. While initially successful, an un-named December storm took out part of the dunes once again.

Exactly one year after Hurricane Idalia hit, just about 10-15 feet of 5-foot-tall sand dunes remain.

“It’s only taken less than a year for these dunes to be washed away because that’s not the answer to the problem we have here,” Beisel said. “The federal government isn’t going to do their job, I’m talking about the Army Corp of Engineers.”

Beisel said some of Treasure Island’s beaches were scheduled to be renourished last year but were not due to a federal rule change.

There’s been an ongoing battle between Pinellas County and the Army Corps of Engineers over beach renourishment and the lack of required easements now needed from all beachfront property owners.

Pinellas County has mulled the idea of using tourism tax dollars to pay for a renourishment project but plans have not been set.

“That’s still a few years away and these dune systems don’t have a few years,” Beisel said.