Lake Michigan |
Officials in Grand Beach, Michigan have closed all public beaches because of extreme erosion from these winter storms.
They say it’s the kind of damage they haven’t seen in years.
“The bottoms of all the stair accesses have been damaged, and the other ramps are eroded and dangerous,” said Dan Schroeder, Grand Beach police chief, in a community alert message.
“We’re urging everybody to just stay away for now, said village superintendent Bob Dabbs, who explained the reason for the extreme erosion.
"If the lake doesn’t freeze, what happens is you get 10, 12, 14-foot waves coming in [during winter storms] and it just erodes the bluff.”
The bluff has eroded so much, waves washed out the dunes and even took out the bottoms of the village's public stairways - leaving as much as a 7-foot drop. Dabbs said the damage is well into the thousands of dollars.
Town officials say they'll hit the beach in early spring to begin repairs ... not only to the stairs, but perhaps by trucking in sand, too.
“We’ve had some storms come in during the summer and we’ve lost some stairs, but not at all like this. I haven’t seen this,” said Dabbs. “Quite a bit of damage.”
