Owner of Lauderdale-by-the-Sea pier damaged by storm vows to rebuild

By Web staff

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (WFOR) — Wind whipped water from what was Hurricane Nicole combined with crashing waves caused a section of Anglin’s Fishing Pier in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea to collapse.

The pier was built in 1941 and after a section of it collapsed about 20 years later it was rebuilt in 1963 and again in 2017 after it sustained damage from Hurricane Irma.

“Anglin’s Fishing Pier is such an iconic landmark in our town, and seeing it damaged is heartbreaking. While the pier is privately owned, I know our town will do what we can to support the property owner in the coming days and months,” said Lauderdale-by-the-Sea Mayor Chris Vincent.

Some locals said that the pier itself was in bad shape and they weren’t surprised it happened. Spiro Marchelos, who owns the pier, said he’s going to fix it and people will be able to use it again, hopefully soon.

“We cannot compete against Mother Nature. We’re here to make corrections to bring back the pier to life. This is a historic pier. We will rebuild and fix it. How long will it take? It depends on everything, permits, and there’s a supply shortage right now. We were fixing the pier and there was a supply shortage,” he said.

A man said he was on the beach with his son around 11 p.m. when he saw the wave crashing extremely hard against the pier. That’s when he saw the surge destroy a section of it.

“At about 11:30 p.m., I saw that, in a matter of five minutes the ocean went from empty to all of a sudden, very large boards were drifting really fast south, as they were going down, large pieces were tumbling in the waves. It’s sad. I’ve lived here for 25 years, took the kids fishing out there, you know the pier has needed some work for a while,” he said.

A man who was out early said he takes his dog for a walk on the pier every day and was sad to see what happened.

“She used to walk that pier all the time and now it’s gone. I used to fish on it when I was little, like a while back, and they were just rebuilding the whole pier right there and like two, one o’clock, the waves were all the way up to the beach side. Now there is no more sand. It was like 43 steps out toward the beach and now there is no more dunes,” he said.

Workers were out in the pre-dawn hours assessing the damage to the pier and securing what they could.

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