Fran Myers comments carried in the April 29 Observer are very understandable. She and Tom sustained major damages to their business from Hurricane Charley. Tom told me that there was three feet of water in his office. Who would not be fearful?

The unfortunate problem is that adding 140 feet of beach in that area can not stop storm surges. Only a dike or wall will do that. Adding sand to the beach will not protect any area from hurricane winds.

Hurricane waves may crash across Estero and tear it up, as Fran says. More sand on the beach won’t help the Myers’ real fears.

It really is time that we begin to look seriously at new technologies and consider alternatives to the old failed technology of laying out sand. that is quickly gone.

St. Petersburg had a $5 million project adding 250 feet of beach width. It was gone in a month. From Bonita Beach to Marco Island in 2006, a total of $23 million of projects are already gone…washed away. The Lovers Key sand project is gone. The eight projects on the north end of our beach are all gone.

There are promising new technologies that show signs of success.

The Town had $400,000 of money for “betterments”. Lee County drained that money away for their artificial beach widening proposal, rejecting new technology. Yet, Lee Countyagrees that their sand will all wash away.

The Town badly needs to carefully evaluate new technology. Others are trying. An ad hoc task force approach -that Mayor Kiker has successfully used before- can be used here with success.

One hundred years ago a hurricane killed 5,000 people in Galveston, Texas, on the same Gulf that we are on. Since that time scientists have studied that catastrophe and later storms. One large beach area in that city was destroyed and deemed unsafe to rebuild. It became a wildlife area. Very high sea walls were built to protect some homes. Scientists have photographic documentation of side-by-side areas of ‘before’ and ‘after’ the same storm. The unprotected homes were obliterated. Those adjacent homes with high sea walls survived. That is what Fran wants… to survive.

If you do what you have always done, you get what you always got. In this case old technology assures failure to restore and maintain the only two real erosion areas authenticated by Lee County’s independent engineers.

It’s time for a change!

Frank Schilling

Fort Myers Beach