The ShoreXplorers: St Joe After the Hurricane - St. Joseph Peninsula State Park [March 16, 2022]

In October 2018, the eye of Hurricane Michael roared ashore just a few miles from St. Joseph Peninsula State Park in Florida. The Category 5 storm had 160 mph sustained winds and was the most powerful storm to hit the Florida panhandle, ever. It was the fourth strongest hurricane to impact the US mainland. It literally blew parts of this wonderful state park away. Campgrounds, hiking trails, roads, park buildings - all gone. The storm dug out a canal across the peninsula, turning the northern part of the park into an island. Over the years, the watery breach has filled in with sand, and just last week (3 ½ years later) they started rebuilding the damaged areas.

We have visited St Joe State Park several times. The campground of this immensely popular park was always fully booked, so it was a treat to be able to stay for 2 or 3 nights. We loved the long white beaches, gorgeous rugged sand dunes and campsites nestled in pine and palmetto forest. We had heard about the Forgotten Coast for the first time while staying at St. Joe. It is a little more than a one hour drive away from where we are staying in Carrabelle, so we decided to see what is left of the park.

To get to the park, you drive through an area known as Cape San Blas. Most of the houses along the road and beach looked new. It looked like they had either been rebuilt or at least had new siding put on them. There were a bunch of structures still under construction. At the park entrance, you see huge stands of dead pine trees, all broken off at the same height. We saw similar tree damage on the Mississippi coast after Hurricane Katrina.

The first mile of the park is open up to the boat dock and store, with two beach access points and a bath house. After that, there is a barrier across the road. The beach is still gorgeous, white, and wide. They have worked to reconstruct the dunes to protect the interior of the peninsula. With the breach filled in, you again have 9 miles of continuous beach to enjoy, with discrete signs telling you to keep off the dunes.

We took a long walk up the beach, trying to peer over the dunes and figure out where the campgrounds might have been. We stopped and enjoyed the gorgeous water and sand, sitting away from the beach access points and the people congregated there. After a while we were joined by a cormorant drying its wings in the breeze. We’d never seen a cormorant doing this task on the beach, we have always seen them perched on a piling or branch.

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park is still one of the most beautiful state parks we’ve visited. We can’t wait to return to the newly built sections of the park.