The president of Hunter Surf Lifesaving says crews will be relying on sandbags and hope that the region's already fragile coastline isn't too heavily battered by more predicted storms this week.
After a few days reprieve from the weekend's massive swell that stripped beaches including Stockton, Bar, Redhead and Catherine Hill Bay, the State Emergency Service has warned of more severe weather from Wednesday.
Central and southern coasts are in its path, before the system extends along most of the coast on Thursday and Friday. Rough swells have also been forecast for the region over the period.
Hunter Surf Lifesaving president Henry Scruton said the weekend wave action was the worst he had seen since the Pasha Bulker storm of 2007, which took between six and 12 months for the beaches to recover from.
He said sand replenishment would be ideal to fix the problem, but had seen how many hoops had to be jumped through to get more sand onto Stockton Beach.
Newcastle council estimates up to 4.5 million cubic metres of sand would be needed to protect Stockton, followed by top ups every decade, with an estimated cost of at least $21 million and necessary approvals to permit an unprecedented offshore sand mining program.
Mr Scruton said temporary measures such as sandbags were really the only immediate option to protect surf clubs and coastal assets from incoming weather events.
"Unfortunately we can't really control mother nature," he said.
Newcastle council said while there was further adverse weather forecast that was likely to impact Newcastle and Lake Macquarie beaches, "it's likely that sand will return to Merewether and Bar Beach relatively quickly".
"Locals would recall in August last year a southerly swell and huge tide stripped away the sand, exposing the man-made rock wall as the beach's last line of defence," the council said in a statement.
"The sand had largely returned prior to the freak weather event of last weekend."
Access to Stockton Beach has partially reopened after all entries were closed over the weekend.
The accessway at Meredith Street is now open, however council said entry at Mitchell Street, from Flint Street to Stone Street will remain closed until the clean-up is completed.
A NSW Department of Planning and Environment spokesperson said the state government was "continuing to look at ways to better support local councils with coastal management" and that council "may apply for emergency works at Stockton Beach, as it has been identified as a significant open coast hazard location".
Mr Scruton said a lot of the local beaches weren't easily accessible at the moment due to the erosion creating "sand cliff faces", and the water isn't really any safer either.
"There's quite a bit of debris and under currents," he said.
"People can get washed away quite quickly.
"It's really not a nice place to go at the moment."
