On Tuesday morning, people in Pass-a-Grille woke up to a nauseating realization: The beach was gone, washed away by two days of pounding by Tropical Storm Debby.

"This was the fastest erosion we've ever seen," said Bert Savage, walking along the shoreline with his wife and kids. "There's usually about 60 or 70 feet of sand."

The surging waves destroyed some beach stairs and crept 10 feet beyond the base of the ones that remained. They even took a bite out of the big sand dunes. As the dunes collapsed, the force ripped sea oats from their roots.

"This storm is really something," said Ping Wang, a University of South Florida geology professor whose Coastal Research Laboratory has been documenting Debby's impact on the sandy shores. The storm "induced severe and widespread beach and dune erosion along the Pinellas County beaches."

Wang noted that while Debby lacked the punch of a full-fledged hurricane, it produced a storm surge of 2 to 3 feet and sustained winds of 23 mph for nearly 48 hours, thus creating the ideal conditions for major erosion.

At Sunset Beach on Treasure Island, for instance, Wang found that the edge of the dune retreated landward for about 10 to 15 feet. And at the northern end of Indian Shores, he noticed an 8-foot-high dune that had been sliced in half by Debby. Parts of Upham Beach had eroded 20 to 30 feet, and on its northern section there was no beach beyond the seawall.

The loss of Pinellas' most famous attraction has plenty of beach businesses fretting. The beaches were part of Tampa's pitch to woo the Republican National Convention to town in August, as well as the longtime basis for the region's tourism industry.

"That's one of the main reasons why people come down here, to use the beach," said Eddie Rodrigo, general manager of the Sabal Palms and Coconut Inns in Pass-a-Grille. "If they can't use the beach because it's so bad, that's going to hurt us. Word will get out eventually."

Rodrigo got called in at 3:30 a.m. Monday when a downstairs guest at the Sabal Palms woke up and found ankle-deep water in the room. Six rooms were flooded, and the guests in two rooms had to be moved out as the water rose.

Now, he said, "I've got a lot of people coming in this weekend and they're calling to find out if they should cancel. Based on the news I've seen the weather is supposed to improve. But how much of the beach is left? I'm not sure what it's actually going to be like."

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Debby's damaged beaches may hurt tourism industry