The visuals from battered Southern California coastlines have been dramatic: massive waves fueled by a big swell and king tides overtopping sand berms, seawater spilling onto boardwalks and streets, sand chomped away causing severe erosion and shrinking beaches just ahead of summer.
Is it just nature, doing what nature does? Will sand naturally make its way back to eroded beaches, or is human intervention needed to safeguard the cherished coastline? These are questions coastal communities have been facing for the past several years, and the recent wave action has only turned up the volume.
And with an El Niño on the horizon, you have to ask: Is the coast in for even more of a battering?
“This event shows just how threatening a big storm event can be when there’s a coincidence of threatening factors: the combination of high tides, big swell and this part of the season being when these beaches tend to be the most narrow,” said Brett Sanders, professor of civil engineering at UC Irvine and an expert on the region’s erosion challenges. “Those factors led to severe impacts observed this week.”
The National Weather Service has extended its current beach hazard warning into Friday night, with more strong surf expected through the week and possibly through the end of the month. And beyond the current forecast, the brewing El Niño could also spell trouble ahead for the coast.
“El Niño tends to generate winter waves with more wave energy,” Sanders said. “I think winter will be the time when we can expect more beach erosion and more coastal flooding.”
While some beaches remain wide and sand is plentiful, other beaches need human help — and when beach nourishment projects don’t happen, impacts become apparent.
Marc Moore and his neighbors along the Long Beach Peninsula have spent night after recent night watching the water spill over makeshift sand berms and wood panels put up to try to hold the ocean’s force back.
“From my perspective, this is no longer a future problem,” he said. “The flooding is here now, and the city can’t keep up. The crews and tractor operators are doing everything they can, but we’re at the point where there isn’t much beach left in many areas.”
Moore worries those attempts are “just a bandage.”
Over the past several days, neighbors have helped each other put sandbags in front of their homes. Luckily, the big waves last week and the megatide over the weekend seemed to just miss each other, the swell dropping by a few feet by the time the king tides hit.
Moore said the beach on the peninsula in front of the homes used to be much wider, but the area is due for sand replenishment, he said.
The channel entrance to Alamitos Bay has been dredged at times to help boaters navigate the harbor, and the sediment is also used to stabilize the shoreline at Peninsula Beach between 62nd Place and 72nd Place, but that project hasn’t occurred for 15 years, according to the city.
It was approved last year, but cost estimates came back too high, delaying the project.
Moore argues the city should be doing annual sand management, rather than scraping for funds and coming up short each time the larger-scale project comes around.
“With the lack of sand on the beach, regular high tides and forecast El Niño, I’ve been pleading with the City Council and mayor to declare an emergency and start the proposed dredging and sand replenishment project now,” he said.
The city’s public works department is in the process of submitting a climate grant to the state to bridge the funding gap.
Moore said he worries about another king tide coming in July. If a big swell lines up at the same time, it would likely be another big blow to the beach — not just a threat to homes, but shrinking space for families and beachgoers who enjoy recreating at the shore.
“We get south swells every summer,” Moore said, “but if we get an extra big one, it’s really bad news.”
There’s growing worry at the Wedge in Newport Beach, where thousands crowded in last week to watch a massive swell that slammed the coast, bringing 25-foot-plus waves that surfers and bodyboarders attempted.
Last week’s swell was said to be the biggest summertime swell in two decades.
Wedge bodysurfer Sean Starkey has been watching erosion change his beloved surf break in recent years and said the effects have never been so stark as in recent days, exposing rock boulders longtimers have never seen before.
Starkey shared a photo of a friend’s bloodied face after he met with boulders running horizontal to the beach, exposed after sand was washed away, adding even more risk to the already dangerous rides.
“They are tumbling down the beach,” Starkey said of the rocks. “There’s so much erosion now.”
Flood control channels were created and rivers were paved over decades ago to mitigate flooding risks, but that also affected the natural sediment flow to the coast. Development inland and coastal infrastructure also prevents sand from flowing back to the beach or affects how it is distributed by currents and waves.
“This is what happens when you dam rivers,” said Starkey, who owns the Costa Mesa-based Yucca Fins. “The sand comes from our local mountains. It’s going to be an ongoing issue. I just want to bring awareness to it and know: What’s the game plan? They keep telling us not to worry about it. It’s frustrating.”
And if sand acts as a buffer between the ocean and homes, he said he worries that the El Niño predicted to bring massive swells to the coast this year will mean even more trouble.
Newport Beach Public Works Director Dave Webb said while the big waves and tides have caused the beach at the Wedge to carve out, sand in the area tends to migrate north, and it should move back to fill in the area when northerly swells hit in winter. As it did in 2020, he said.
“It healed itself, it kind of moved back,” Webb said. “I know everyone gets nervous; they see this big carve out. We have to count on the seasons, currents, winds and swells. Mother Nature tends to fill it back in.”
The city will continue monitoring the Wedge area, he said, but there’s no specific nourishment project planned to bring sand to the beach.
“We’ll keep looking at it; we can’t do a whole lot,” Webb said. “We have to rely on the fact that it has always kind of healed itself there. It has happened before, it’s not something we haven’t seen before.”
Much of the sand that comes down the Santa Ana River gets regularly dredged and hauled to the groin jetties in West Newport.
Sand moving south from a replenishment project in Surfside three years ago has pushed up into Talbert Marsh with the recent swells and high tides and is being pushed back out to the shoreline by the county, Webb added.
Adding a new project to the Wedge would take a whole new set of permitting through regulatory agencies, funding and other hurdles, he noted.
“It’s not an easy process,” Webb said. “I don’t even know where we would get the sand to begin with.”
Other coastal areas are being watched carefully as sand continues to shift. Footage from Crystal Cove State Beach in Newport Beach made its rounds on social media as a lifeguard tower nearly tipped into the ocean as the sand crumbled under it when waves hit.
Water rushed up near the famous Crystal Cove cottages and near the Beachcomber Cafe Restaurant.
“It looks bad,” said Mark Girardeau, who runs Orange County Outdoors. “I’ve never seen the beach like that, ever. I don’t know how much the beach can take before it all washes away.”
He wonders whether there will be areas for the public to enjoy this summer.
“Where are people going to go?” he asked. “There’s not going to be any sand for them to hang out on.”
Crystal Cove officials sent out an email noting the challenging conditions with the powerful surf and beach erosion.
“Beaches lost sand, infrastructure took some hits, and conditions changed quickly as the ocean reminded us of who is really in charge,” Crystal Cove Conservancy CEO Kate Wheeler said in the note.
But this is what coastlines do.
“Beaches are dynamic systems,” she noted. “Sand moves. Shorelines shift. Storms and swells reshape the landscape. While the images can be dramatic, what we’re seeing is part of the ongoing story of a living coast.”
California State Parks staff, lifeguards, maintenance crews and operators have been working tirelessly throughout the event, she added.
“Their professionalism, preparation and long hours have made all the difference, and we’re deeply grateful for their efforts,” she said. “There is work ahead, as there always is after a significant swell, but Crystal Cove remains as remarkable as ever. The coast has changed shape a bit. The people who care for it have shown up in force. And the park endures.”
Laura Davick, a longtime resident of the cottages who helped transition the area to a State Park amenity, went down on Sunday to check on the area, noting the “tremendous amount of sand that’s been taken out.”
She’s seen it happen before, she said, and while it’s not clear how long it will take to get the sand back, it looks as though all the major infrastructure is holding up, including the newly renovated North Beach cottages and a new boardwalk that was built on stilts just for this purpose, to let the sea surge under it.
“That was a big relief to see that,” Davick wrote in a social media post. “Prior to the boardwalk, there was not much between the ocean and the cottages. I have seen it going up to the front doors of some of them in the past.”
Other impacts from the big waves include San Onofre State Beach shutting down the dirt parking lot that lines its Surf Beach, with authorities waiting for the swell and high tides to pass. The area was expected to reopen on Wednesday, June 17.
There is a bit of hope on the horizon.
There’s a chance an El Niño could bring big rainstorms as seen in 1982-83 and 1997-98, which while adding troubles could also wash sediment down creeks and onto beaches to resupply the sand levels and build beaches back up, said Sanders, the UCI professor.
“The hitch is that El Niño doesn’t always produce wet winters,” Sanders said. “They almost always deliver big waves, but not always in wet weather. If they do, it’s good news for the sand supply.”