Atlantic City is blocking access to a half-mile stretch of beachfront after erosion created cliffs as high as 18 feet.
It will be at least four months until the beaches will be open to the public again.
“It's dangerous. If you walk out there at night, you could walk right off the cliff,” Tom Foley, the city's emergency management coordinator, told the Press of Atlantic City.
Officials have set up barricades between Pennsylvania and Rhode Island Avenues until a three-month beach replenishment project set to begin in mid-February is completed.
The Army Corps of Engineers pumped 280,000 cubic yards of sand after Tropical Storm Irene five months ago at a cost of $10.3 million, officials told NBC Philadelphia.
The upcoming fix-up job will pump 1 million cubic yards of sand onto the shoreline throughout the affected area, and another 325,000 in Ventnor.
All that sand will cost $14.1 million. If more sand is needed, the cost could bump up to $16.8 million.
