King tides have taken a toll on Volusia County’s coastline, washing away sand and leaving steep cliffs along the beaches. Now, the county is assessing the damage — including in New Smyrna Beach, where a $25 million sand placement project was recently completed. As jarring as the erosion looks, county officials say the outcome is exactly what they expected.

Some of those cliffs stand nearly 5 feet tall, carved out by the force of the king tides. In other areas, receding sand has re-exposed seawalls — the same stretch where the county just spent $25 million to rebuild its sand buffer. For one local resident, the project made all the difference.

“If they wouldn’t have done this, we’d be back to square one with losing our walkways and losing all the sand from in front of our sand walls,” said Tracy Capps, who manages a local condo club in New Smyrna Beach.

“It saved us,” Capps added.

Not everyone shares that relief. At 27th Avenue Beach Park, sand that covered the beach just a month ago has largely disappeared.

“Now we’re back to kind of where we were before,” said Harry, a local resident.

County officials, however, maintain the project is performing as intended. They describe the $25 million effort as a deliberate, short-term fix — a sacrificial buffer designed to absorb the kind of punishment king tides deliver.

“The sand acted as a sacrificial buffer for our properties, who either have seawalls or properties who are not permitted to have seawalls, but it also protects your public infrastructure,” said Jessica Fentress, Volusia County’s coastal director.

The county says it lost more than 6 million cubic yards of sand following the 2022 hurricanes — far more than this year’s project could replace. Officials are now pursuing a long-term federal project in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“The very good thing about the federal project is following a hurricane there’s a $0 local cost share. It’s a better insurance policy. While this was a Band-Aid, we have the long term projects in place. We hope to have votes at our county council in early 2027, and we hope to sign our agreement with the Army Corps before the end of the year,” Fentress said.

As for whether the $25 million was money well spent, officials note that some of the displaced sand may still be sitting just offshore and could migrate back toward the beach as wave conditions settle.