BRICK, N.J. (AP) More than five months after Superstorm Sandy roared through, destroying hundreds of houses and damaging thousands more, Brick no longer has dunes on its beaches.

Instead, it has piles of hastily-arranged sand serving as emergency barriers that are all but begging to be washed away.

So when Mayor Stephen Acropolis emerged from a meeting Thursday with New Jersey environmental officials who told him a federal beach-replenishment project probably wouldn't take place in Brick until next year, his resolve to have the town do something on its own only hardened.

Brick is one of many Jersey shore towns considering new and costly ways to protect their shoreline in the aftermath of Sandy. Some are turning to sand-filled fabric tubes that would form the base for new dunes. Others are looking at expanding protective rock walls or so-called groin fields, which are rock piles placed offshore. Many towns are paying for the work themselves.

"We're sitting out here naked, with no dunes," Acropolis said. "I call them sand castle piles. You get a full moon high tide and they're gone."

Earlier this week, Brick's township council explored the idea of placing a geotube, a huge sand-filled tube, covering it with sand and planting dune grass atop it to form the basis of a new dune system. After hearing about the delay in the federal beach-widening project, Acropolis predicted the council would be even more supportive of the $7.5 million project, for which Brick would probably have to borrow money.

It would join its neighbor Mantoloking, the New Jersey community hardest by the storm, in using the tubes to help rebuild dunes. The strategy has been used in other Jersey shore towns including Ocean City, Atlantic City and Sea Isle City, among others.

Homeowners in Bay Head, on the other side of Mantoloking, got permission from the state to expand a protective rock wall, paying for it themselves. The project would extend an existing 4,500-foot wall by another 1,300 feet.

In Avalon, the council agreed Wednesday night to study beach protection technology including a groin field rock piles placed in the water and parallel to the shoreline. The rocks would have small gaps between them large enough to let water and sand flow through but small enough to blunt the force of large waves and storm surges.

"It is our responsibility to examine innovative ways to provide a greater level of protection for our community while preserving our beaches and dunes that often take the brunt of significant coastal storms," said Avalon Mayor Martin Pagliughi.

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NJ shore towns eye new ways to protect beaches