South Beach at Hunting Island has reopened just in time for the upcoming weekend.
The area was closed from Tuesday through Thursday of this week so that park staff could perform heavy tree work on the road shoulders inside the park and to the parking areas.
Work will continue next week and the south beach area will be closed from Monday through Thursday, August 17th through the 20th.
The parking area at south beach will again be closed, as will the parking area at the lagoon. Only north beach will be open for vehicles during this time.
South beach will reopen, along with parking areas on Friday the 21st.
The announcement was made by the state park via Twitter:
Great news! We have reopened South Beach early for the weekend! We have done a lot of work and its ready. We will close it again Monday through Thursday next week as well to complete all of the heavy tree work along the roads. We leave you with a great pic to start your weekend! pic.twitter.com/2dELNqxFHg
— Hunting Island State Park (@HuntingIslandSP) August 13, 2020
The trouble at Hunting Island came after intense rains on July 6th & 7th dumped a whopping 12 inches of rain on our sea islands in a 48 hour period, causing roads and lower-lying spots in the park to be flooded.
The park was closed for a few weeks in July while staff used two pumps and waited for the water to drain off of the roadways.
This certainly isn’t the first time that Hunting Island saw problems due to Mother nature.
The past few years haven’t been kind to everyone’s favorite local beach. Hurricane Matthew caused lots of destruction in 2016 and that was followed by Irma in 2017 and each time there are heavy rains, some of the roads in the park flood out, as does the campground.
Reports say that the roads in the park will be undergoing a major overhaul in the future and will be raised a few feet above their present height to help avoid flooding in the coming years.
