Anna Maria Island City Pier remains cut off from land after damage from Hurricane Milton

After the Surge: Anna Maria Island City Pier

Kimberly Kuizon reports.

ANNA MARIA ISLAND, Fla. - In the City of Anna Maria, restaurants and shops are back open. The crowds during spring break make it look almost like nothing happened, but around the city, homeowners continue to repair flood and wind damage from Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Local perspective:

The crystal-clear blue waters and the iconic Anna Maria Island City Pier draw visitors from around the world, but it was damaged during Hurricane Milton.

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"We always like to come out to Anna Maria Island, to look around, come to this spot, walk out on the pier," said Louise Walsh, who is from Chicago and has been visiting Anna Maria Island as a family tradition since the 80s.

Big picture view:

Since the hurricane, the pier now sits alone and separated from land without a walkway. As Milton made landfall just south of Anna Maria Island, FOX 13’s Anna Maria City Pier Cam captured waves crashing onto the walkway.

The next day, it was gone.

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"I think how unfortunate it is that all the damage was done in this whole area by the hurricanes," said Walsh.

What they're saying:

Across the way, Morgan Bryant, the owner of Cool Beans, said she had noticed foot traffic slowed without access to the pier.

"You just think about it, and it doesn’t seem real," she said.

After working to recover from the 20 inches of water inside her shop, Bryant still misses the view of both locals and visitors enjoying the pier.

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"We get a lot of people that come in and say ‘what happened?’ ‘When are they going to fix it?’ We are kind of wondering the same thing, It’s a big draw for us down here on this end of the island," said Bryant.

Dig deeper:

Anna Maria Mayor Mark Short said engineers are nearly finished with designs for a proposed walkway out to the pier.

"The pier is an icon and to walk out there the day after Milton and to see the walkway was gone. It was devastating," said Short. "Some of our employees and people tears were shed when they saw what wasn’t there."

At the end where a grill, bait shop and the Mote Marine Education Center sit had some damage to the buildings, but is structurally sound, said Short.

"Our plans are when we rebuild the walkway, we will build it the way the t-end was built to make it better with respect to withstanding storms they know will happen," he said.

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In 2017, Hurricane Irma damaged the City Pier beyond repairs, and it was rebuilt and reopened three years later. Short and the City of Anna Maria want to make sure these repairs last a lifetime.

"Our focus is to get that pier restored as quickly as we can and build it back in a way that we hope will prevent this kind of thing from happening again in the future," he said.

The Source: The information in this story was gathered through interviews with an Anna Maria Island visitor and business owner. It also includes details from Anna Maria's mayor.

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