The hurricane eroded beaches and dunes from Vero Beach, Fla., up to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. Named storms like Hurricane Matthew can even turn locally funded beach “nourishment” projects into federally funded ones. That’s right: If your community pays for its own beach, and a storm comes along and removes that beach (as we know storms do), then FEMA can come in and have the beach rebuilt. For example, the United States Army Corps of Engineers completed a $30 million beach project in Folly Beach, S.C., in 2014. Hurricane Matthew appears to have removed the last vestiges of the recreational beach from that project.

Source: New York Times October 12, 2016 07:18 UTC