the beach is... well... gone.
 

nearly a week of massive surf, upwards of 35'.... has destroyed what used to be beautiful Keawakapu Beach. This was the huge expansive beach across the street from me.

http://www.ampiezza.com/stuff/beachgone1.jpg

http://www.ampiezza.com/stuff/beachgone2.jpg

http://www.ampiezza.com/stuff/beachgone3.jpg

a few others we checked out:

Big Beach is half gone. Kamaole 3 is about 95% gone. Wailea Beach is about 70% gone.


fucking sad. :(

damn...can they pump sand back up from out a few hundred feet?

how do they replace the sand?

shitty. how difficult will it be to repair?

i don't think it's something you can replace.... the surf took it down at least 6 feet deep, and probly 40 yards wide, all the way down. All that lava rock you see there.... was never visible before. It was all buried under sand.

that's alot of sand.

Wow...:eek7

What happened exactly ? surfers ?

can you post a pic of it before ?

Mother Nature has it's reasons. It will rebuild itself.

yeah, chill man.

Give it 4 to 6 million years, and you'll have a nice beach there again.

here's a few "before" shots....

http://www.ampiezza.com/stuff/beachbefore1.jpg

http://www.ampiezza.com/stuff/beachbefore2.jpg

fuck that must lower property values

hmmm...you could get a floating barge..and some huge ass pumps that can push peanut butter through a 100o yard hose.


suck it up from the bottom at about 3/4 sand 1/4 water..and fill that beach back in.

:2 cents:

I bet you $100 that that high priced hotel will truck sand in like they do in Wakiki & dump it right where the Hawaiian Gods took it from.

Can you swim?

I'm getting red X's :(

When I lived in FL, we had a huge "beach restoration" project. It was millions of dollars and this was 20+ years ago. They put a huge pump out into the ocean and pumped the sand back onto the shore. The cool thing was all the shells, shark's teeth (huge ones - as big as your hand), etc. that appeared on the shore. :)

We really weren't meant to build on the beach. I vacation in the Outer Banks every year, and storm after storm is taking the houses down. Unfortunately, FEMA (i.e. you and I) builds them right back up again.

Nothing but nothing will lower property values on Maui.

VA Beach was slowly eroding away; the city spent a hell of a lot of money having sand put back to restore the beach.
When Hurricane Isabel came through last fall that new sand is all that kept the ocean off of the buildings there by the beach; if they hadn't brought that new sand in the water would've been right over the buildings and they would've been gone.

They'll pump/truck in some sand and replace the beaches, they're not going to let one of the biggest tourist attractions simply wash away (and the revenue with it).

that's crazy. if that keeps up, you could be in alot of trouble. i've never seen such a huge impact on the beach and i live at the beach.

damn, thats incredile...just shows that we are only inhabitants of this planet...mother nature does what she wants...

Peaches people are stupid like that. There's a town up the road a bit here called Franklin, it's literally in a 'bowl'. Town floods out every time it rains and when hurricane season comes through it turns into a big pond. Couple of years ago the water was 8 feet high and most of the businesses were completely destroyed. Before the water had even receded the townspeople were on the news chanting "we'll rebuild, we've been through this before", blah blahblah. Fucking idiots.

The mayor has tried time and time again to get them to move the town just one mile away, on higher ground that never floods, and the idiot townspeople keep voting it down.
Guess they like having those fat insurance checks coming in every year.

A similar occurrence happened on the southern end of Lake Michigan several years back. The erosion was so bad that homes fell into the lake near Buffalo and Michigan City.

Several years ago there was a group of people trying to get flood insurance to only cover 1 or 2 rebuilds, but I'm not sure what happened to the plan. Flood insurance is relatively inexpensive when you figure out how much damage a flood can incur - even if the house still stands. It's the taxpayers who are picking up most of the expenses. :mad:

They finally put a 200 foot setback around here for building, but it was more for water quality than protecting homeowners from themselves.

Mother Nature is one wicked bitch.... I fear her

Amp - what's the time span between those before & after pics?

got a few more pics of some of the other beaches here

Keawakapu was hit the worst so far that I've seen though...

actual time span between the pics I'm not sure... but the beaches were wiped out in less than a week. The big surf rolled in about a week ago. We're still getting pounded by it, but the damage is already done... there's nothing left for it to take.

Dont worry , every 5 years it happens the same way in california. A hurricane force wind comes along and sucks all the sand out to sea and leaves rock ,coral, and pebbles in its place .

They will truck more sand in and it will be all better in a few years.

Dang, Amp - I still can't connect to your site. :( Have you got "GA Rednecks" blocked or something? :winkwink:

truck it in from where? Unlike California, we're sitting on a rock in the middle of the Pacific.

hmmm i never thought about that . :)

Im sure theres somewhere with shitloads of sand nearby. In california they just dig it up. Near camp pendleton

you can't control mother nature.... sure they can pump a bunch of sand back there and waste a few million that can then be washed away again...

they do the same stupid ass shit here in FL...

beach restoration is old hat here in florida. good rule of thumb (here anyways) is it costs approximately 1 million dollars per mile of oceanfront to have a barge pump the sand back up to the beach.

I wonder if the surf had anything to do with the earthquakes across the way..

that was a nice beach before.

Damn, less than a week! That's so sad. :(

Two years ago they spent millions 30+ pumping sand onto San Diego beaches, i think they went as far North as Cardiff and guess what during the winter it all got washed away. The beach i live on is 10' lower than normal this year but it will be back for the summer as always. The real problem here in San Diego is Cliff erosion over the past 8 years i have seen many houses collapse or destroyed. Del Mar had some 5 million $ houses smashed by the winter waves. Nothing and i mean nothing can stop nature !!!


Cindy xx

thats crazy

hopefully there's something they can do... I don't know what, but hopefully something. That beach was too nice to just be gone. And all the homes and resorts I'm sure aren't too happy about it either. :(

damn, thats a big shame
beautifull place you live in though

Shit! I've never seen such a dramatic before and after of beach erosion...

What was the cause of all that surf? Just the pacific winter weather patterns? crazy shit.

LOL.. sorry had to..

but wow..

http://www.ampiezza.com/maui04/janua...s/IMG_0313.jpg

yea, just a series of big freak swells... normally we don't see big surf like that on the west facing shores.... and a week of it ate the beaches.

I just moved to Wailea 1 month ago today & I'm bummed. Here's some pics I took of Keawakapu on Jan 6th. About 4 days later it was ALL gone. Very sad.

http://www.mauipad.com/2004-01-06/DSC02832.JPG

http://www.mauipad.com/2004-01-06/DSC02818.JPG

http://www.mauipad.com/2004-01-06/DSC02815.JPG

Ouch that sucks. Looked so perfect before.

Holy shit. That is absolutley amazing. Looks great!!!

Sorry to hear that AMP, that sucks :(

definately...

was just the other day we were all enjoying champagne and fireworks over there... :(

It is so sad.. I am hopeful they can do something and not for the tourists' sake only.

It looks very nice and pleasant in the pics

A lot of Waikiki Beach is fake, sand they brought in from Maui.

Damn. that sucks!

I know all those beaches.

Hey Amp,

I will be back in June, we will have to spend the days
and nights drinking or something..:Graucho