Virginia Beach, Va. - Crews finished up work at Sandbridge this week. Fifteen million dollars and two million cubic yards of sand are part of the project to improve sections of washed away beach and now it is finished. Now more work begins at the Oceanfront.
“This is really nice. I mean it's way better improvement than it was before,” says David Derrick, a lifeguard.
Crews have now blocked off an area of the beach near 45th Street where dredging just began.
“When they're first replenishing it, it doesn't look nice. It's icky, I mean it's not soft sand; it's hard packed stuff with shells in it. Before they do that, I mean there's not much of a beach at all,” says Derrick.
But despite that, Derrick says, these projects are necessary to save the beaches.
“It eats away the beach really quickly with massive surf from a hurricane because we don't have big dunes, it will wash all the way in and it could take out houses and stuff on its way through,” says Derrick.
Many others agree like Janie and Katie O'Connor. They have been visiting the Oceanfront since they were babies.
“I have friends coming this weekend and they've never been to the beach. They're from Ohio and so having to show them this for their first time isn't best case scenario,” says O’ Connor.
They know it gives relief to those living right along the beach.
“One of my best friends actually is down on 50th Street and she's got an Oceanfront house and her family was really worried about it. When it was so close about whether or not the water was going to come over this wall and into her front yard and cause damage to her house,” says O’Connor.
