Clearwater City Council voting Thursday on more possible repairs to Pier 60 in Clearwater Beach
CLEARWATER, Fla. - Right now, the pelicans are pretty much the only ones enjoying part of Pier 60 in Clearwater Beach being closed.
The bait shop and beyond on Pier 60 have been closed since Hurricane Helene due to storm damage.
The Clearwater City Council is voting on Thursday to approve more repairs to Pier 60 in Clearwater Beach.
What they're saying:
"Anywhere you see wood, these are places that the waves washed the railing away," Matthew Anderson, the City of Clearwater’s Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation, said showing Fox 13 the damage Wednesday. "The siding was actually washed away up to here," he said marking the wall with his hand about 12-14 feet from the ocean.
The pelicans, though, will soon have company.
"This is where the pier, when we open hopefully September first, will stop. This will stay barricaded on this side," he said pointing towards the horizontal strip marking the end of the pier. "That’s the T. What you have here is you've got precast slabs with a topping poured on top and the slabs go this way and this way," he said pointing opposite directions. "So, with the wave action, they actually beat together and that's what causes significant damage here at this joint and that lifting," Anderson said.
"The wave action and water lifted up, and it literally picked up the concrete with the wave action and set it back down. So, it moved the entire pier deck in some situations as many as five inches," he said.
What's next:
Clearwater City Council will vote Thursday on permanent repairs to the bait house and temporary repairs to the pier up to the T. Long-term repairs near the T will include a bridge joint.
On Monday, City Council told staff to start investigating future mitigation, and look into putting a frangible deck on the T.
The Clearwater City Council is voting on Thursday to approve more repairs to Pier 60 in Clearwater Beach.
"It allows, as the wave action comes up, it has panels that come attached and allow water to move through so we don’t have that significant lifting like we did during Helene," Anderson said, describing a frangible deck.
That process will take 12 to 18 months.
The backstory:
The storms also washed away the utilities to the bait house. They’ve set up temporary fixes like solar-powered lights to help boaters while they work to restore power.
"To see it in this disarray was very shocking," Anderson said.
By the time the pier, from the bait house to the T, reopens in September, Anderson said they’ll have lost almost $2 million in revenue between bait house revenue and the $1 pier fees to walk from the bait house to the T.
They were able to reopen part of the pier by March first.
"The pier is a very iconic image. It's on billboards. It's in banks. It’s even on my daughter's debit card. So, everybody knows Pier 60," Anderson said. "It was a real accomplishment."
The Clearwater City Council is voting on Thursday to approve more repairs to Pier 60 in Clearwater Beach.
Anderson said they’re also protecting infrastructure across Clearwater.
"The Parks and Rec Department in the city as a whole: we've been working with FEMA, with our emergency management, to put in mitigation strategies to protect all of our infrastructure. So, we've got flood barriers that we're looking to put up, sort of like Tampa General Hospital has. We've taken out boardwalks that were subject to lifting and replaced them with concrete slab on grade walkways that are more resilient to water and surge," he said.
The flood barriers are planned for the Clearwater Beach Rec Center, along with impact-resistant windows. The Rec Center is still closed from last year’s storms. They hope to reopen it by March 1, 2026.
"One thing that we have learned, we've got better practices for inspecting after the storm. We also have better methods for documenting post and pre-storm. So, we’re just improving all of our practices on how we handle our emergency operations citywide," he said. "We're as prepared as we can be for this coming storm season. We have our procedures, our emergency plans, and we're ready to execute them. Hopefully we don't need to, but if we do, we'll be ready," Anderson said.
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The Source: Information for this story was gathered by FOX 13's Kailey Tracy.
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