CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Coastal communities turned once again to nature to help protect their cities and towns from future storm impacts.

Over the weekend, beach-bordering cities and towns in Brevard County planted thousands of plants called sea oats along the dune line. 

“It’s one of the simplest things we can do as a city to really mitigate the effects of things like storm surge and sea level rise,” said Zach Eicholz, the sustainability manager for the City of Cape Canaveral. 

Eicholz said since 2005, more than 150,000 sea oats have been planted along the shore. They not only act as a natural defense for the city and the beach, but he said they also help mitigate light pollution for sea turtle hatchlings as they make their way to the ocean. 

Toward the end of the last decade, the city started increasing the number of sea oats that were planted each year. It went from about 3,000 to 5,000 to 10,000.

After experiencing a king tide in 2019, the city decided to double the number of sea oats planted in 2020 to 20,000. Eicholz said the plan is to keep planting at that higher level for the foreseeable future. 

Because part of the beach comes up to private properties, like condos, the city has been making efforts to reach more people living in those areas who are able to bring sea oats there and plant them themselves.

“In the last couple years when I’ve planted sea oats, we’ve walked down the beach to the more public areas and I wondered, why aren’t we planting behind the condos,” said Katie Brewer, a resident in Cape Canaveral. “So I made an effort this year to reach out and say, ‘How do I get sea oats and how can I get them behind our condos up near Jetty Park?’”

The annual planting brought out hundreds of volunteers, including elected officials.