A New Jersey Shore town is getting the final piece of a flood defense network: a $300 million system of interconnected levees, gates, walls and dune, all designed to channel, deflect and drain dangerous storm surges intensified by a warming climate.

On Monday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced the final contract phase of the Port Monmouth Storm Risk Reduction Project.

“Thousands and thousands of Middletown residents will be safe and secure from those rising tidal waves,” said Middletown Mayor Tony Perry.

“Oh, I am so grateful for this to go up. What they’ve been doing has really helped us a lot,” said resident Cathy Rogers, who moved to Middletown in 1976 and immediately lost everything in a flood. Homes in Port Monmouth — built on salt and freshwater marshes — flooded often. “And then of course Sandy came, and we had 241 homes here that were lost,” she said.

“Building this type of infrastructure to protect our communities is critical now … and will only become more so in the years ahead,” said Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette.

Funding for the 15-year-long effort is dedicated through the Sandy Relief Act. But the enhanced beach already needs replenishment. And some advocates see political storms ahead, recalling how the first Trump administration slashed funding for Shore resilience and that President-elect Donald Trump remains skeptical of climate change.

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th) Pallone said he’s trying to add earmarks for beach replenishment to the pending U.S. budget document, but said he believes federal funding for coastal New Jersey could survive under Trump.

“In the past, he’s been supportive of the Army Corps projects, and so I really don’t think we need to worry about that when it comes to this project or the other Army Corps projects, like in Union Beach or the Shore protection along the Atlantic Coast,” Pallone said.