Canaveral National Seashore is facing severe erosion and losing 800 sea turtle nests from Milton

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Canaveral National Seashore is still recovering from Hurricane Milton.

Flooding and severe erosion closed the park for days immediately after the storm. Some parts have just reopened to the public. National park rangers from across the country are in Central Florida to help rebuild.

Bulldozers were hard at work on Tuesday removing sand from the covered roads. Tons of it still cover several barricaded areas in the national park.

“The high winds, the high surf came in and pushed down the dunes that we were recovering from, so we’re back to square one,” said Laura Henning, public information officer for the Canaveral National Seashore which covers both Brevard and Volusia counties .

The park says it has seen a storm surge of at least 10 feet. While in the park, you can see how far salt water has come in because Henning says the brown plants on shore were submerged in salt. It’s been a rough few years at Federal Park. They were finishing up reconstruction after Hurricane Ian and Nicole when Milton moved in this month.

“It was a little frustrating,” Henning said.

On Tuesday, three beach parking lots were safe enough to open on the Space Coast.

“There’s always anticipation and gratitude when it finally opens,” said Rose Henderson, who was visiting the coast.

She is one of many who was saddened to see the storm’s impact over the years.

“The sand has been almost as high as the toilets, which is crazy,” said the enthusiastic beachgoers.

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Hurricane Milton also hurt sea turtles.

“We ended up probably losing about 700 to 800 nests, whatever was left there was gone,” added Henning, who says they had a total of about 7,400 nests on their beaches this year.

“Yeah, that’s a ton,” Henderson added. The loss of the sea turtle gives her “a very bad feeling.”

The boardwalks still need to be rebuilt and coastal geologists are trying to find new ways to preserve the park.

Henning says their goal is to “make the areas visitors come to more sustainable through these ‘bigger and badder’ storms.”

Opening the entire park is a waiting game. Officials work every day to restore and rebuild affected areas. Follow Canaveral National Seashore on Facebook or Instagram to see when specific areas are ready for visitors.

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