Page 58 - Panama City Living Magazine September-October 2019

RESTORING SEA OATS AND DUNES
Storms have a devastating long-lasting impact. When Hurricane Michael made landfall in Mexico Beach in October 2018, the storm surge reached more than 19 feet above mean sea level. Pounding waves and wind turned houses and other structures into rubble. The small beach town’s power and water supply was impaired for months and the recovery of its infrastructure is still ongoing. Mexico Beach’s popular fishing pier was destroyed and the once tranquil sand dunes were flattened, wiping out the sea oats that helped create them.
Apart from their picturesque look on the crests of sand dunes, sea oats are integral to coastal ecosystems. The deep roots of the hardy plant penetrate the sand. In a slow process, the sea oats help form and grow larger sand dunes. The long spindly sea oat leaves provide habitat for nesting birds, and in the fall, its seeds feed native and migrating wildlife. But while it tolerates salt and is resilient against the elements, the plant cannot tolerate water logging and will die within a few days if flooded and battered, just as it happened during Hurricane Michael. It takes years, even de- cades, for dunes and sea oats to regenerate on their own.
Eight months after the storm, Duke Energy donated 15,000 sea 58 • September–October 2019 • www.PanamaCityLiving.com
oat plants to Mexico Beach in an effort to jumpstart the recovery of the town's impacted coastal ecosystem. A call to volunteers to help with the planting had an overwhelming response. More than 300 people showed up and even more had wanted to come to help.
Where do 15,000 sea oats come from? This particular batch was ordered from a South Florida growing facility that is permitted to collect the seeds of plant species in their natural habitat and grow them in greenhouses. Arriving in neatly stacked trays, the sea oats were moved by volunteers into buckets for better handling and planting by the workforce. Equipped with shovels, buckets of sea oats, and buckets of hydro-gel, a water-soaked polymer that helps provide consistent moisture to the roots of the young sea oat transplants, the volunteers headed to their designated beach in small groups of 10 to 15 people.
Joe Taylor, executive director of Franklin’s Promise, a non-profit organization that has supported this and similar projects for the past five years, explains that the process is relatively easy. “Other than shovels, spades, and hydrogel, we do not need other equip- ment to plant the sea oats,” he says. “The process of planting is