John Cori is a Rockaway native. For the last few years, he has been sounding the alarm about beach erosion between Beach 92nd and 103rd Streets.

"It should be about 150 feet of sand and then you enter the water, not just walk off the boardwalk and fall in,” Cori explained.

In 2019, the city re-nurished this stretch of shoreline with 300,000 cubic yards of sand. But Friday morning at high tide, it was just about a 30-foot trip from the boardwalk to the water, with waves washing well beyond boardwalk ramps.

"It is almost like it is a pier now,” Cori said.

Cori said residents are closing watching the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Coastal Protection Project.

Throughout the summer, 19 stone groynes are being installed along the shoreline to protect and stabalize beaches.

Cori wishes the project would move quicker.

"It may look like it with the boardwalk, but there boardwalk is not protection. The dunes are gone. So our protection is gone. So we are vulnerable as hell," he said. "We are like in the rain with out an umbrella."

In 2018, the Parks Department had to close the same parts of the beach. Erosion had narrowed it so much, lifeguard chairs could not be set back far enough to get a wide view of the water.

We asked Parks Commissioner Mitchel Silver about how the erosion might impact this beach season.

"Certain areas that flagged, but right now, we expect the entire beach to be open," he said. "There's also construction going on by the Army Corps, so there will be the full beach open, but there are sections we are keeping an eye on. We will use the red flags if it is not safe for people to go into the water."

Parks said they are grading out the sand in thin areas to allow as much usable beach as possible.

They said the don't anticipate closing access to the sand, though swimming areas may change, as they do regularly.