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constructed to pi UliCLl/ beach road from erosion.
Although it took a while to complete, there were few complaints when this massive undertaking was done. The concrete wall was made with broad steps that descended about six feet down to the water plus another two feet into the clay bottom.
These steps became a wonderful place upon which to sit, to fish, to put traps out to crab, to throw a net and catch shrimp. Its linear expanse along the waters edge formed a nice place for countless families in the area to come for a day and enjoy themselves.
We can see what it was like then by driving over to Clermont Harbor and Bayou Caddy; the wall there is lined with families on a weekend, using it today much as it was used years ago.
Once completed, however, the wall began to have serious problems. Strong tidal currents and wind-driven water worked at the wall and as time passed, swept some of the clay bottom away and undermined it.
Where the undermining was severe, the massive weight of the now hanging concrete wall caused it to collapse, either bringing part of the road down with it, or leaving the road exposed to similar erosive actions.
Following the damage wrecked on the Coast by the severe 1967 hurricane, the Army Corps of Engineers made a 150-foot wide sand beach to serve as a secondary buffer. This lasted about two decades.
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vehicles dragged 111 11CYV	.
the noise was endless.
If not from the noise, you could tell where the pumping was at any one time by the screaming birds and the cars parked to watch. It was by day or night, a colorful spectacle and while it was here we enjoyed it.
Gradually the new beach came into being, stretching for six long miles, from Bay St. Louis almost to Clermont Harbor.
Finally, it was done and the noisy busy machinery, the hordes of workers and the screaming gulls and spectators went away.
The road became quiet again. In that quiet, nature in sometimes calm, sometimes spectacular displays began slowly working to undo the actions of the dredge.
Due to the general circulation of the waters in the Sound, there is a natural migration of sand from east to west. Storms, local winds and tidal currents add to this and the result has been a gradual shrinking of the beach. County crews move the sand about weekly, evening the shoreline in those places where erosion is severe.
But the forces that generate this erosion are unrelenting and these efforts give the beach a neat, well-groomed look rather than slow the erosion appreciably. Now, eight years later, the beach is narrower, varying in width between 150 to 200 feet. Next year it will be less. If we get severe storms this winter, it will be much less.
In any big storm, the road
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