With the OC coast facing a barrage of higher-than-ever king tides and recurring storms, the city is doing everything it can to prepare, Seal Beach City Manager Patrick Gallegos assured residents this week.
“I think for us, like most coastal towns right now, we’re really over-preparing for what we anticipated and what the scientists with the National Weather Service have predicted will be an unprecedented event for us,” said Gallegos.
Relentless waves have already damaged homes in Newport Beach and Long Beach, and coastal areas have begun reporting low-lying flooding like a massive king tide that flooded Sunset Beach.
Seal Police confirmed that Tuesday’s high tides forced Huntington Beach authorities, in collaboration with Caltrans, to close Pacific Coast Highway from Anderson to Warner Ave. in Sunset Beach.
Accordingly, during the flooding, a roadblock at the southbound intersection of Seal Beach Boulevard and PCH briefly screened residents for proof they lived in Sunset Beach before allowing access to some of the underwater areas.
Sunset Beach witnesses say high tides overtook the streets and entered as many as 100 homes in the Huntington Harbor area around midday, forcing water into the streets and making the Pacific Coast Highway impassable.
Billy Fuller, owner of Beach Music, a small business on PCH in the affected area, said his business sits higher than the water reached, so it sustained no damage, but his shop was already stocked with neighbors’ guitars and other instruments caught in the flash flood.
“One guy just brought me 12 guitars,” said Fuller on Tuesday afternoon before going to work to carefully preserve the instruments.
Ironically, Governor Gavin Newsom was in Crystal Cove to sign an Executive Order protecting the “iconic” Pacific Coast Highway as it flooded a few miles north. The Governor has called for a task force to combat the super El Niño, with tides expected to worsen over the next two months.
As the Sun went to press on Wednesday, authorities predicted high tides were expected again in Sunset Beach, only slightly lower than the flooding they caused on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, back in Seal Beach, the City Manager stressed the importance of residents staying in touch with authorities.
“We’re getting the message to our community through all of our outlets, including OC Alerts, Nixle, a messaging service for which folks can sign up,” said Gallegos. “And Nixle is very important to us. We can get that message out right to our residents,” he said.
While Newport and Long Beach have been hard hit, Seal Beach, traditionally an early target of high tide flooding, has largely been spared so far.
“Like most of the coastal cities, we’ve had soil and sand erosion that has impacted us, but not to the degree of a city like Long Beach or Newport Beach or San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano; we’ve been fortunate in that way,” said Gallegos.
“But we believe, and it’s predicted, that we’ll have larger impacts,” he added.
“I think for us, like most coastal towns right now, we’re really over-preparing for what we anticipate and what the scientists with the National Weather Service have predicted to be sort of an unprecedented event for us,” the city manager told the Sun on Tuesday.
“And we’ve already seen the symptoms of this, what they’re calling a super El Niño, in front of us, and that’s starting with these king tides that are higher than what I’ve seen in my 15 years in Seal Beach.”
Gallegos said the odd weather pattern could extend well into December, urging residents to connect to Nixle and stay abreast of ongoing developments.
“As we move into November and December, staying in touch is going to be ever more important,” he said, noting that he has stayed in close contact with other city managers and elected officials along coastal stretches of Long Beach and Orange County.
“We’ve been talking across coastal cities, not just in Orange County, but also in San Diego County, and having this regional support and collaboration has been important to how we’re preparing for this new environment,” Gallegos said.
“And you know, if you look across our bridge, which is our neighbor in Long Beach, and see the impacts of these tides, it’s incredibly important that we take this seriously, and we’ve been doing that,” he said.
Workers were busy this week building berms on the beach in Seal Beach, trying to stem the flow of a high king tide that is bringing water across highways, into homes, and causing havoc for residents and the local governments that serve them.
“We’ve been lucky these first couple of storms, but as I said, we anticipate this to change, and we are preparing with sand berms. We’re preparing our staff, even our non-public works and non-public safety staff in City Hall,” Gallegos said, reflecting an ‘all-hands-on-deck’ approach.
“We’re a small city; we have a small staff, and we must rely on each other. When we sign up for this job, we take an oath to be disaster workers, and so from our accountants to our recreation staff, we’ve been trained in using water pumps,” Gallegos added.
Gallegos said city officials are especially concerned about the pier.
“Like most of the coastal cities, we’ve had soil and sand erosion that has impacted us, but not to the degree as a city like Long Beach or Newport Beach or San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano; we’ve been fortunate in that way,” he said.
“But we believe, and it’s predicted, that we’ll have larger impacts. We have the second longest wooden pier in California. We certainly had some moderate impacts to our pier during Hurricane Marie, and we anticipate that to be the case (larger impacts) with these more intense storms,” Gallegos said.
“This is something new for us, and so, if needed, if our public works folks are, you know, at three-day stretches and need to take a rest, our other staff is going to pick up the slack and help out, so that’s what we’re trying to do,” the city manager said.