ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – As hurricane season is underway, downtown St. Augustine is moving forward with a multi-million dollar project to improve an aging seawall.
The seawall along the Matanzas River was built in the 1960s and has seen better days. After years of storms slamming against it, the deteriorating seawall requires restoration to better protect an area that is prone to flooding.
The National Parks Service is holding a public meeting next week to receive community input about the planned upgrade.
Caden Beatty, a St. Augustine resident, said he’s seen his fair share of water overtaking the seawall and flooding the area.
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“Honestly, if this area was a little bit bigger and elevating the seawall so there’s not as much flooding downtown,” Beatty said.
Bernie C. was a tourist from Orlando with a background in international construction projects in water.
“I’ve done some construction in West Africa and just pounding those sheet piles in there blocks off dams and blocks off rivers,” Bernie said.
Bernie said he is familiar with St. Augustine’s flooding issues even though he does not live in the area. He shared an idea to use interlocking metal to create a wall similar to what engineers envisioned in the renderings.
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“We would do in Nigeria; they would be 30 feet long. You would use the excavator as a jackhammer and drive in. It was like tongue and groove. You slide the next one in there like this. And then you drive that in there,” Bernie said.
The community meeting will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 25, at the Renaissance St. Augustine Hotel.