Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS. : MISCELLANY

If you plan to spend time on the sand this summer, there’s good news. There’s more sand at the beaches to spend it on.

Three years of unusually mild winters have helped restore the formerly wave-pummeled beaches, replacing tons of sand that had been stripped from the shore during violent storms.

According to an official with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, about 75% of the depleted coastline has been replenished through the gradual movement of sand from the underwater drifts created during the wintertime.

Sand from deposits several miles off the coast have helped expand the width of beaches about 110 feet during the three years, said Carl F. Enson, chief of planning for the corps.

“On the average, we lost about 150 feet of beach during the storms,” he said. “The beaches are still depleted. But they are in much better shape now than we expected after those storms. We have had a remarkable recovery,” he said.

And more sand could be on the way. Enson said planners expect the beaches to increase by another 10 to 20 feet in width this summer from the movement of sand that becomes suspended in waves in winter months and then is swept onshore during the summer.