Pensacola Beach Blogger

Pensacola Beach has a different shape this fall, after several weeks of the Gulf re-claiming its sand, or, at least shifting it around. Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike seemed to have left their mark on our beautiful beaches. There are four, seven, and even some ten-foot drops on the east side of the island:

I’m curious to see what the future holds. Will the SRIA somehow bring sand in, or reshape the beach? Will the beaches take their normal, flat shape again over time? Leave a comment if you have any input on this:

The walkway near my home is officially closed now, due to the big drop off at the end of it:

Hurricane Gustav is gone, but he took something with him! My beach! This walkway usually ramps down into the sand. Today there’s a 2 foot drop-off:

You can see some damage to the sand fences (or whatever those are called):

But the good news is that the sun is shining, at least for now. There are still a few storms rolling through though. I snapped this picture around noon today:

We just braved the tropical storm conditions here on the beach to get some shots of the storm surge.

Check it out! No beach here, only huge waves:

If you do venture out, be careful! I just heard the following go out over the Pensacola Beach Lifeguard’s radios:

“All lifeguards, keep in mind you are NOT to go in after swimmers! Stay out of the water”

If you want to set up your police scanner to monitor beach happenings, see my list of Pensacola Beach Scanner Frequencies.

Gustav is upon us. Throughout the night we have endured probably a dozen tornado warnings, thunderstorms, torrential downpours, and some impressive wind, but as you can see, it is finally morning:

Check out how high the tide is! The waves are probably 12 feet tall.

You can see that it is really chewing up the dunes. If it starts to flow over, we are leaving the island.

I just feel fortunate to still have power and internet. We might take a drive to see if there is any major damage on the island. Check back later today for an update!

While waiting to lose power out here on Pensacola Beach, we decided to make light of the evening and have a hurricane party, including our very own Hurricane Gustav Cake 2008!

Yum Yum! Hurricake!

As we approach high-tide on Pensacola Beach tonight (12:21AM), the sea continues to rise. In fact, tonight it is higher than I’ve ever seen since moving down here. The waves are approaching the foot of the dunes, nearly breaking through to the houses behind. Take a look:

We’ll keep you updated so long as we have power. If the surge gets any higher we might leave the island though.

We’re starting to see the outer bands of thunderstorms and winds from Gustav. This quick storm rolled in a few hours ago:

Time to come in from the beach. Red flags indicate that swimming in the Gulf is now prohibited:

We should see most of the action after midnight tonight. I’ll keep updating, so check back!

Here on Pensacola Beach, we are starting to see signs of Hurricane Gustav. Although it is scheduled to slam New Orleans to our west, we will still see some impressive weather here on the beach, along with a formidable storm surge. We are currently under a tropical storm warning.

Not the sunniest day on Pensacola Beach:

You can see these strange, low, gray clouds whipping across the island from the north-east:

Hurricane shutters are still going up:

This guy has a quite a challenge ahead of him:

He might have the best view on the island to watch Gustav come in: