Parts of Stockton beach became a tourist attraction on Friday as hundreds of people stopped by the peninsula's seaside to view the damage caused during a large swell.
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City of Newcastle was forced to install temporary safety fencing around the most eroded parts of the beach where access walkways, fences and garden beds had been wiped out.
Onlookers gathered along Mitchell Street and further north throughout the day to view the powerful surf and depression of sand along the beach embankment.
Stockton resident Lisa Scott, who lives in the aptly named Stone Street - only a stone's throw away from the beach and pre-school that was last year forced to relocate its playground - said if nothing was done about the continual erosion of the beach she might soon be "fishing off our verandah".
"The council really needs to do something ASAP," she said. "Our house shakes all through the day when it's pounding like this. It's just a shame, the council have done such a good job in trying to rectify it but it just hasn't fixed it. Again, it's been a band-aid [solution]."
Ms Scott said beachfront residents became increasingly concerned every time there was a damaging swell. She said Friday's erosion was not the worst she had seen, but it was still a concern.
"If this keeps going and going, what's going to happen? The road's going to go," she said. "They're going to have to do something big, something major. But really what concerns a lot of Stockton residents, if this was at Merewether or Bar Beach, the council would be onto it now. They wouldn't be sitting around the table: 'what do we do? what do we do?'."
Former Stockton resident Terry Noon drove in from Raymond Terrace to check out the conditions.
"I've never seen it like this before," he said. "To see the erosion here, it's quite unbelievable. It's quite spectacular but it's very sad to see it happening, very sad to see the foreshore washed away."
Mr Noon, 72, said "50-odd" years ago "we used to walk 100 metres to the water".
"Not necessarily on the high tide, but it was probably a 50-metre walk," he said. "[Now] it's not that far from where the water's breaking to their front doors."
A southerly swell peaked at about six metres at midday on Friday with waves of two to three metres. A hazardous surf warning was in place for Saturday, but conditions were expected to be far less intense than Friday.
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