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JACKSONVILLE - When Hurricane Frances struck Stuart and Vero Beach, dunes were devastated and washed out, sea walls were undermined and boardwalks were ripped up.
Similar damage was reported at other Atlantic coast beaches, which experts are trying to assess so they can repair a pillar of the state's $51.5-billion tourism industry.
Some experts say they expect Frances eroded the state's Atlantic beaches, carrying away sand, while others say the beaches fared well overall.
Tom Flanagan, a spokesman for Visit Florida, the state's tourism arm, said about a third of tourists list the beach as one of their destinations. "If you don't have a beach, you don't have tourists," said Stephen Leatherman, director of the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University in Miami.
But before any repairs can be made, the damage must be determined. Planes from the U.S. Geological Survey in St. Petersburg and the state Department of Environmental Protection are flying over east coast beaches snapping digital pictures of the damage from Frances.
The pictures will be compared with those taken before the storm to determine the damage to beaches, said Abby Sallenger, a USGS oceanographer.
Experts already were analyzing the damage from Hurricane Charley when Frances hit. Charley was a compact Category 4 storm that hit southwest Florida Aug. 13 with winds of 145 mph and exited a few hours later at Daytona Beach.
In contrast, Frances, with winds of 105 mph, was a much larger storm, covering an area about the size of Texas. Its snail-like movement, accompanied by stalls, kept it over east coast beaches for hours.
"I fully expect to see more widespread damage to the coastline," Sallenger said.
Robert Dean, a professor emeritus in civil and coastal engineering at the University of Florida, said, "It was the type of storm that can cause a lot of erosion."
But Leatherman said Florida's beaches fared well, with a few exceptions.