El Nio flooding grips Newport Beach in a vise. 'Mother Nature comes to collect some tax'

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Set us as preferred Newport Beach resident Bill Sharp has seen his share of flooding in his six decades on the Balboa Peninsula.During past El Niño seasons, residents have been known to swap their cars for canoes and paddleboards to get around the peninsula after storms and high tides.

But the record-breaking tides this week took even Sharp by surprise.Seawater from Newport Harbor surged over sea walls and flowed onto city streets, inundating homes and businesses.The tide was so high that the Balboa Island Ferry, which has shuttled cars between Balboa Island and the Peninsula for more than 100 years, had to temporarily suspend operations.

“It’s crazy.We’ve somehow added two feet of water to the normal sea level,” Sharp said.

“Basically nothing in the city was built to deal with an eight-and-a half-foot tide.”A full moon on Monday converged with warmer than normal waters to ramp up high tides in Southern California.Ocean temperatures have been affected not only by human-caused climate change but also an El Niño-fueled Kelvin wave that brings warmer water from the equatorial Pacific Ocean up and down the coast of the Americas, and a months-old marine heat wave unrelated to El Niño.Scientists say this marine heat wave has caused seawater levels to rise 1.25 to 1.8 feet higher than they would be just from the movement of the moon, Earth and sun.Other coastal communities, including Redondo Beach, Huntington Beach and Long Beach, also experienced flooding, and officials say it could get much worse as El Niño hits its peak this winter.But Newport Beach has been particularly hard hit, and both residents and city officials are having to rethink their relationship with the ocean.

It’s become a battle in which the weapons are sandbags, water pumps, sand berms and drainage canals.These tools have shown signs of succe...