The pier, located in the Baldwin County city of Gulf Shores, was hammered by the hurricane in September 2020. (Alabama State Parks photo)
Three years after Hurricane Sally wiped out a 200-ft. section of the Gulf State Park Fishing Pier on the Alabama coast, the pier closed in mid-November for construction to repair the storm damage and is likely to reopen by the end of next summer, according to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR).
The pier, located in the Baldwin County city of Gulf Shores, was hammered by the hurricane in September 2020 just as it was about to reopen after a $2.4 million rebuild due to a hit from an earlier tropical storm.
The 1,540-ft. long pier had been the second longest on the Gulf of Mexico until Sally’s furious winds and waves collapsed a portion of the structure near the octagonal fishing area at the south end. Before the storm, the Gulf Shores pier was only 5 ft. shorter than the nearby Navarre Beach fishing pier in Florida.
After a lengthy bid process to get Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funding, the $13.6 million job was awarded to MD Thomas Construction in Orange Beach, Ala., which handled the previous renovation.
The pier closed to the public Nov. 12 and will remain shuttered throughout the construction, which should be completed in August 2024, Al.com reported Nov. 24.
Until then, the pier’s parking lot and the public restrooms also will be closed and the area around the pier will not be available for beach access while it is a construction zone, the Alabama news service noted.
While the Gulf State Park pier is unavailable, park visitors can still get to the beach at Cotton Bayou, Alabama Point, Shell Beach and the Beach Pavilion; Romar Beach access will soon open after its own set of improvements are made.
The repair process at the Gulf Shores pier may take longer than fishermen and tourists will like, cautioned Lamar Pendergrass, operations supervisor for the South Region of the State Parks Division of the ADCNR.
“When you’re dealing with a government bureaucracy, things don’t move as well as we would like,” he told Outdoor Alabama, the Alabama department’s official publication. “We’re just proud to get this project started.”
Al.com noted that MD Thomas will use a barge in the pier area to facilitate the repair work.
In addition, rebuilding the pier will require removing the concrete pilings that collapsed and are underwater. Removing that debris is expected to take a couple of months, depending on the weather.
Some of the standing pilings also will have to be repaired by divers and lighting equipment for the entire pier will need replacing.
Damaged or Not, the Pier Stayed Popular
Although the Gulf State Park fishing pier was only open as a short section since Hurricane Sally’s rampage, business remained brisk.
Pendergrass said 34,100 fishing passes and 82,000 sightseeing passes were sold in 2023, even though the publicly open part of the pier was shorter than it had been.
Even with a shorter pier, he explained, the fishing was good, if different.
“The anglers weren’t able to target some of the usual species,” Pendergrass said. “This season, I know that sheepshead was one of the primary fish we saw being caught out there.”
That is in addition to the redfish, flounder, and red snapper that have been caught off the diminished pier in 2023, he said.
When the repair work is complete, the Gulf State Park pier should be better than ever, predicted ADCNR Commissioner Chris Blankenship.
“A trip to the Gulf is not complete without experiencing the sights from the pier,” he said. “When the work is completed, anglers and other park visitors will have full access to one of the premier fishing and sightseeing destinations on the Gulf Coast.”
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