A Coastal Comeback: The Reopening of Sarasota County’s Midnight Pass

Photo by Kerri Scolardi, Mote Marine Laboratory

Coastal engineers are capitalizing on recent natural events to reopen Midnight Pass, an inlet in Sarasota County located between the southern end of Siesta Key and the northern end of Casey Key. 

The reopened pass has cleaned up the water in Little Sarasota Bay and become a haven for residents and visitors alike. On the weekends, boaters, kayak tours and sightseeing charters take to Midnight Pass to enjoy the crystal clear waters and the wildlife it attracts. 

While Midnight Pass’s reopening is a success story for boaters, conservationists, local business and the economy, its conditions are being closely monitored by engineers in hopes that what Mother Nature has reopened can remain in harmony with beaches to its north and south. 

A Cascade of Unintended Consequences

In the 1960s, a project to dredge the Florida Intercoastal Waterway diverted water away from the inlet, and a decision to deposit dredging material on nearby land triggered a series of unintended changes in the region’s hydrodynamics, including gradual closure of Midnight Pass.

Then, in the early 1980s, the wildly unstable inlet began rapidly migrating north, threatening residential homes on the coast. To protect people and property, Sarasota County closed the inlet under an emergency order with plans to reopen the inlet in its original location. However, attempts to reopen the inlet with mechanical equipment failed and the area was ultimately classified as a closed inlet.

Efforts to Reopen Midnight Pass

Over the following 40 years, efforts to reopen Midnight Pass were thwarted by seemingly insurmountable legal and permitting obstacles, according to Michael Jenkins, PhD, PE, senior principal engineer for Geosyntec Consultants, whose team was tasked with finding a way to reopen the inlet. 

“Everybody was challenged by the fact that it was a closed inlet,” Jenkins said. “And there were several attempts to get permits, but they weren’t able to get permits.”

While Florida law provides for management of an open inlet, it also makes it nearly impossible to reopen an inlet. 

“There wasn’t a technical answer,” Jenkins said. “There wasn’t some scientific or magical way [to reopen the pass]. They would have had to change Florida law.” 

Photo by Kerri Scolardi, Mote Marine Laboratory

Mother Nature Reopens the Waterway

In 2024, powerful storm surge from Hurricanes Helene and Milton reopened Midnight Pass, a beneficial byproduct of the deadly and devastating storms. Ironically, the inlet was originally created by a powerful hurricane more than one hundred years ago. 

Once Midnight Pass was reopened by natural forces, Sarasota County’s partners were tasked with a new directive to keep the pass open. 

Keeping the Pass Open

Today, coastal engineers and agency partners employed by Sarasota County are monitoring sediment pathways and mechanisms, as well as flow characteristics, to evaluate the inlet’s likelihood of staying open. Sarasota County’s partners focus efforts on a critical inlet cross section that is measured on a weekly basis, while regional and watershed data collection efforts monitor other factors. 

“While the opening was a silver lining of the storms, recovery was a major priority immediately after,” said Rachel Herman, environmental protection division manager in Planning and Development Services at Sarasota County. “More directly related to the new inlet, the county was challenged to better understand it, and within two weeks of the opening, the county began collecting survey data to measure its depth and cross-section at the inlet throat, which has continued weekly since. This data has been invaluable in understanding the coastal conditions and how the inlet is evolving.”

When the early measurements were collected, Jenkins said it did not appear that Midnight Pass would stay open. However, by January 2025, the data suggested that the pass was stabilizing as it became more efficient at moving water and responded to seasonal forcing.

“County staff and contractors closely monitor the weekly survey results,” Herman said. “Sudden and significant shifts in location, depth and cross-section that differ greatly from the same period in 2025 might indicate a trend toward closure. All available information is reviewed holistically.”

In addition to the weekly measurements taken at the inlet cross-section, the county is measuring tidal flows to gain a sense of the tidal prism, the total amount of water moving in and out of the inlet. 

This summer, Geosyntec Consultants will conduct beach profile surveys to determine the inlet’s impact on adjacent beaches. 

“One of the big concerns with inlets is they have a habit of grabbing sand and forming bars and shoals,” Jenkins said. “So they grab sand from the beaches.”

This is problematic for a number of reasons, Jenkins said, but especially because the beaches to both the north and the south of the inlet are classified as critically eroded by the State of Florida. 

“All of that needs to be managed,” Jenkins said. “We’re going to be doing analysis regarding the adjacent beaches on both sides to make sure we have a good understanding of what’s going on with that.”

Regional monitoring in the area is ongoing and has been heavily influenced by the reopened inlet, which has revived an old connection to the Gulf and allowed for greater water exchange. As hurricane recovery continues, more changes in habitats, seagrass and water quality are expected to impact the area. 

The Emergency Response Plan 

Though the weekly measurements have demonstrated promising results for the health of Midnight Pass, there is always the possibility that the inlet could begin to close again. Sarasota County is armed with an Emergency Response Plan with measures to combat the inlet’s closure in the event that its recovery takes a negative turn.

“There are two paths forward – one would be a formal process that would take years where we would formally seek permits from the state, the DEP and the (Army) Corps of Engineers,” Jenkins said. “That would be a long-term program to manage the inlet. The other [path], if the inlet were to indeed close, would be measures taken under a county emergency order to try to keep the inlet open.”

Formal permits could prove challenging, given that they require detailed plans that identify specific corrective actions. With just over a year of data and an environment that is constantly changing, Jenkins said it would be difficult to identify what an engineered corrective action would entail. 

“Right now, [the inlet’s] open all on its own, and we also have to be very aware of unintended consequences,” Jenkins said. “If we dredge somewhere, we might disrupt what’s there now and cause some kind of change that we don’t want to have happen.”

For now, Midnight Pass is being carefully monitored, and any action taken will be the result of meticulous planning and consideration. Much of this has been informed by engineering missteps in the 1960s that ultimately led to its 1983 closure. 

“It’s well-established that inlets are caused by hurricanes, but it’s very rare that we have it occur under these kinds of circumstances,” Jenkins said. “This is a truly unique situation.”