BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Even from 200 miles away, Hurricane Irene will send rough surf to the east coast and will give Central Florida beaches a pounding, which could cause some serious damage in terms of beach erosion.
Satellite Beach has been hit hard by storms repeatedly over the years, including in 2004, when several homes fell into the ocean. And homeowners in the area could see some of their property wash away again later this week.
Hurricane Irene is taking a path similar to Hurricane Floyd in 1999, which terrified residents in Brevard County and caused more than $8 million in damage, mostly from beach erosion.
The eye of the storm stayed well off the shore, but Floyd created large, powerful waves that ate away at the coastline.
Since the storm, the county, state and federal government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars pumping sand onto the beaches to both protect against future storms and protect homes and properties along the coastline.
Even if Irene stays off shore, the waves could be strong enough to wipe away millions of dollars of sand in just hours.
Killian Mills and Stelios Manouselis already lost their swimming pool and back yard during a storm several years ago.
Now, with Irene just around the corner, they worry they could lose again.
"We are probably going to lose a little bit of sand, but not too much," said Manouselis, a Satellite Beach resident.
The concern now is coastal erosion.
A marine geologist WFTV spoke with said the billions of dollars already spent on beach re-nourishment have only put a Band-Aid on the problem, and every time a storm comes it only gets worse.
"Erosion is chronic, going to get worse and we're running out of solutions," said Randall Parkinson.
He said the main problem is rising sea levels.
One major factor in the erosion is Port Canaveral and the channel, dredged back in the '50s, has disrupted the natural flow of sand south along the beaches.
He also said if millions of dollars weren't spent each year on protecting the shore, many more homes and businesses might have already fallen into the sea.
"There is just not that much real estate to grind through," said Parkinson.
Some of the sand has been dredged up from off shore, but WFTV found out there is only so much good sand out there, and eventually it will run out.