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ST. PETE BEACH - Beach dwellers at Pass-a-Grille got wet without stepping a foot onto the sand Thursday afternoon.
Thanks to Hurricane Ivan, it wasn't hard to do: The 8-foot waves that pounded the area during high tides Wednesday and Thursday eroded 25 feet of shoreline and 15 feet of dunes.
Near Seaside Grille, water shot over the seawall and onto those who came to see the typically placid gulf's unruly alter ego.
"It is beautiful after a hurricane, but it is a little bit dangerous," said Maire McCormack, 39, her hair drenched, her sunglasses streaked with water.
Preparing to leave, the St. Petersburg woman looked back at her family's usual beach of choice and said: "This beach is gone."
The storm wreaked similar havoc on most of the barrier island beaches, said Nicole Elko, coastal coordinator for Pinellas County. Larger-than-normal waves coming in 10-second intervals caused the widespread erosion, Elko said.
"Typically, they come in every two seconds and they're itty-bitty," she said.
The waves also created "overwash," which means they pushed sand up and over the dunes along the beaches and into yards in residential areas, she said.
Sunset Beach and the northern end of Treasure Island each lost 20 feet of sand and 5 feet of dunes, Elko said.
Elsewhere in the county, Pinellas officials reported no serious flooding at high tide early Thursday morning. Low-lying coastal areas had minor flooding, which also occurred at high tide Wednesday afternoon.
"We expected the waves, but we weren't really sure how they would affect the beaches," Elko said Thursday. "We knew there would be a swell. We were hoping it would actually build up the beaches. That's really not what happened."
Look north and south from the Pass-a-Grille concession stand and a strip of sand less than 10 feet wide separates what remains of the dunes from the waterline.Tom Pleasants, the concession stand's manager, said the erosion will be bad for business.
"There's no place to lay down," said Pleasants, 43. "There's hardly a place to walk. ... It's a big concern, especially for the spring season. We need to have places for people to spend time on the beach."
Elko's office is working to resolve that.
The county has contacted the state's Department of Environmental Protection to apply for an emergency permit to pump $2-million worth of sand into Pass-a-Grille.
County officials should learn the permit's status within a few weeks, Elko said. If that doesn't work, Elko said there's another way to bring sand back to the beach: in conjunction with the Sand Key renourishment in early 2006.
"We'll get sand out there," she said. "It just depends on how early."
Meanwhile, Sunset Beach - scheduled for renourishment prior to the storms - will receive a fresh load of sand "as soon as the waves die down" and the northern end of Treasure Island will have sand trucked in, Elko said.
Sand-anemic or not, Pass-a-Grille will still draw her and her family, one beachgoer said.
"This will still be our favorite spot," Lisa Sepulveda, 37, of Tampa, said Thursday. She watched her 7-year-old son and 4-year-old niece revel near the waves shooting 5 feet over the seawall. "It will be interesting to see in a couple months how much beach is left."
Times staff writer William Levesque contributed to this report.