Photo: [ DOUGLAS R. CLIFFORD | Times ]. Retrieved from tampabay.com
North of touristy Clearwater Beach and west of Dunedin sits a cluster of quiet islands.
They are state parks — lacking the accessibility and white sand beaches to the south. Instead, these barrier islands are home to redfish, loggerhead turtles and gulls.
Hurricane Idalia’s storm surge widened island passes, thrashed vegetation and displaced nesting wildlife. In exchange, coastal Pinellas — the most densely populated county in Florida with 3,425 people per square mile — was largely protected from the worst of Idalia’s surge.
Historically, these islands are constantly changing, said Al Hine, a marine geologist and professor at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
Honeymoon Island and Anclote Key are the more stable of the local barrier islands, according to Hine. This is the unlikely benefit of a seagrass die-off in the 1950s that destabilized sand deposits off the coast and washed sand ashore nearby islands.
“So, Anclote Key grew by 30% of its entire length within just a decade or so,” Hine said.