There are some areas that should not be rebuilt unless those who benefit from the rebuilding share the total costs. As for something like dunes, it depends how beneficial they are to others outside of the people closest to them. If having a nice beach there is important to tourism, then it may be worth it. If someone's expensive house is the only thing on the other side of the dune, then guess who should pay. I'm not sure how things are done up there, but hopefully there is some common sense too. Everyone does have to deal with various natural disasters no matter where you live, but probably being at the coast is probably the absolute riskiest of them all. (Some areas of California where you have to worry about mudslides, fires and earthquakes might also be up there as the riskiest along with living next to a stream that floods all the time.)

As for the exact dunes you mention, what a place for a road. Well named, Ocean Parkway. Obviously, if they need a road there they need to do a better job. You do need something in the dunes for them to last as long as possible, but even then is the initial cost of that, the cost to repair that as necessary and the cost to recover that with sand at times worth the money? Is the tourism revenue that important to the area?

It really does seem like a losing battle. Elevate the road completely and let whatever happens happen around it? That would probably be more expensive and wouldn't work anyway as it appears there are structures in that area.

At some point it might be worth giving up and just having ferries go out to barrier islands for people to go to the beach. That is unless the people living out there want to contribute the bulk of the money to keep repairing it. Going forward, people along the coast do need to start paying more and more to protect the land if they want to keep trying to keep it in place and have the ability to live there. That simply must be the case as it is increasingly unfair to others, who despite also having risks of natural disasters, have risks to a much lesser extent and should therefore be burdened less financially. Everyone probably benefits from tourism in various ways, so those particular areas can have some costs shared with others in the state.