'The whole beach is gone': Big waves, flooding bring destruction to SoCal coast. It's a warning
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Set us as preferred To begin to understand how a “super” El Niño winter could punish the Southern California coast, the historic wooden boardwalk on the Long Beach Peninsula may just offer a glimpse at what’s to come.Days of intense waves fueled by Hurricane Marie far away in the Pacific left several sections of the boardwalk completely destroyed after massive swells swallowed protective sand berms and slammed through the seawall.That force also left several oceanfront homes damaged, some flooded, with at least 24 homes put under evacuation orders until Wednesday morning, as officials assessed the extent of structural damage from the storm, according to the Long Beach Fire Department.
“The whole beach is gone,” said Carmen Vaudry, 58, describing how the sand used to sit just below the boardwalk in front of her home, but now appears to have dropped several feet.But Long Beach wasn’t the only victim of the ocean’s effortless wrath this weekend.High surf pounded the region’s increasingly fragile coastline from Malibu to San Diego, and experts say it could be only a taste of what is ahead as the El Niño forecast continues to strengthen.
“Unfortunately this is just a preview,” UC climate scientist Daniel Swain said Tuesday during a discussion of the storm.“The coastal flooding later this year, … it will get worse this fall and especially this winter.” In Dana Point, relentless waves damaged several beachfront homes, completely destroying decks and tearing through walls.
City officials on Tuesday “red-tagged” seven of those homes in the Capistrano Bay District community, deeming them unsafe for residents, and two others were “yellow-tagged,” signifying some safety concerns, according to Dana Point officials.Farther south in San Clemente, high tides also overran a section of the long-vulnerable ...