Sea oats now being planted on newly repaired dunes on Jacksonville Beach

JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — On Tuesday, workers began phase two of dune restoration along Jacksonville’s coast.

Crews worked through the rain Tuesday, digging holes and planting dozens of sea oats and other vegetation in the newly repaired dunes.

Jim and Dee Lucas live in the condos near 8th Avenue North. For them, seeing the work underway was a huge relief.

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“It's good to see because we lost so much of the dune here and putting all this back, hopefully we'll have enough time for it to grow and it'll be safe again,” Jim Lucas said.

Action News Jax Skyvision drone showed you a bird’s-eye view of the miles of newly restored coastline. More than 2.7 billion pounds of sand now cover about 10 miles.

Heavy machinery from phase one of the project is now making its way off the beach.

Phase two will consist of planting about 620,000 native dune plants.

“They need to get the foliage and so forth to hold the sand together but that's going to take time,” said beachgoer Kimberly Whipple.

First Street from Neptune Beach through 8th Avenue North in Jacksonville Beach will get the first batch of sea oats.

From there, portions of Atlantic Beach will see work, and then the focus will be on central-south Jacksonville Beach through 16th Avenue South.

The project is expected to continue through Aug. 15.

Meanwhile, locals are urging everyone to keep off the dunes.

“If you play on it, they're going to go away and then we lose that protection,” Whipple said.

The city was left with 5,000 cubic yards of sand from phase one that it plans to use to repair specific areas of dune erosion between 18th and 27th avenues south on Jacksonville Beach.

Cox Media Group