A wave of relief washed over Fire Island this summer thanks to new funding intended to prevent the beloved shoreline from becoming New York’s own Atlantis.
The money — $1.7 billion secured in this year’s state budget — pays for resiliency work for Fire Island and other Long Island shorelines through 2050. It helps cover the cost for the Army Corps of Engineers to replenish the beaches with sand and add other infrastructure to fight erosion, which has become an existential threat for the popular summertime destination.
As the summer comes to an end, Fire Island lovers are thanking state lawmakers for the help.
The erosion was particularly frightening for many Fire Island locals and visitors just two years ago, after a series of winter storms washed away so much sand in some areas that high tides would flood some residential properties. The island is 32 miles long, but is only about 500 feet wide in some areas.
Residents said the dwindling beaches pushed the waters closer and closer to their properties every year, leaving them fearful their homes were doomed to be swallowed by the sea.
But now, the state’s money coupled with federal grants will pay for the beaches to be replenished at regular intervals, easing concerns about the future of the barrier island that’s increasingly threatened by climate change.
“ It’s a totally, completely, 100% different experience this summer,” said Bill Doyle, a children’s book author who owns a house on the island. “There was real danger there that people were going to lose their houses and access to the beach.”
Bill Doyle (left) and Darren Jones (right) are all smiles now that Fire Island’s shorelines are holding back the tides.
Liam Quigley
While fewer than 1,000 people live on Fire Island full time, the National Park Service says its shores beckon more than 2 million visitors annually. For decades, much of the island has earned a status as one of the country’s most visible LGBTQ communities.
Rob Young, the director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, said the fight to protect Fire Island is one that’s happening in coastal communities from Texas to Maine.
While Young said the funding enables crews to dump new sand on the beachfront to address erosion for the next 25 years, there’s no guarantee the resiliency work would be funded beyond 2050.
“The main question is how long can this really happen and who should pay,” he said.
Still, Young warned the work might not be enough to shore up the island forever. It’s been eroding for centuries: it was once connected to Long Island on both of its ends.
“It depends on how fast sea level continues to rise and storminess,” he said of Fire Island’s future.
The beach replenishment work is especially critical in the Fire Island Pines, where the ocean was dangerously close to consuming beachfront properties as recently as 2023.
Fire Island attracts more than 2 million visitors a year, according to the National Park Service.
Liam Quigley
Henry Robin, the president of the Fire Island Pines Homeowners Association and a part-time resident, celebrated the state funding earlier this month by hosting a campaign fundraiser for Gov. Kathy Hochul on his house’s pool deck.
The governor was given a hero’s welcome at the event.
“With her leadership, we are securing a future. Not just for the here and now,” Robin said, “but for the next three decades.”
Still, the lion’s share of the money to be spent shoring up Fire Island is still coming from the federal government. That funding continues to flow even as Hochul has increasingly framed her politics in opposition to those of President Donald Trump, who just last month slashed funds used to replenish New Jersey beaches.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is celebrated as a savior on Fire Island these days.
Liam Quigley
Robin, who has lived through decades of storms on Fire Island and seen patchwork fixes, acknowledged that the project depends heavily on Washington. But he said federal money for Fire Island has always received bipartisan support.
“Of course, there are no guarantees; however, I am confident that the federal funds will continue to be appropriated no matter who is president at the time,” he said. Fire Island provides critical protection to the mainland, and that has been recognized by Congress for decades, regardless of which party has been in control.”
He said allowing the shoreline to wash away would threaten the rest of Long Island, because Fire Island is a barrier island that mitigates tides and storm surge.
“It would be like taking all of Long Island and putting them on the bullseye of the target,” Robin said.
