Hurricane Isaac Washed Away Alabama’s Sand Island

Sand Island along the Alabama coast has disappeared beneath the waves.

The Sand Island Lighthouse is still standing alone in the water. But the island that was rebuilt by the U.S Army Corps of Engineers last year got eroded by Hurricane Isaac. The Press -Register reports that parts of the island are a foot under water.

A coastal engineer with the University of South Alabama, Scott Douglass, says sand that normally flows from east to west along the Gulf coast gets interrupted by the Mobile ship channel. Sand that would normally be deposited on Sand Island ends up in the ship channel.

Susan Rees of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says the corps hopes to add sand to the island during annual maintenance of the ship channel.