A trio of storms since early September have strained Long Beach’s historic boardwalk, which further collapsed between 64th and 65th on Seaside Walk during a weekend of high waves.
The city’s public works team and its Office of Parks, Recreation and Marine were working to secure it, installing sandbags and rebuilding the berm to prevent water intrusion. Authorities also continue to monitor coastal homes that received red and yellow tags during the weekend assault.
Mud and sand flooded the Long Beach peninsula as waves broke the boardwalk’s protective wooden divider.
Inspectors red-tagged nine buildings along Seaside Walk, the Long Beach Post reported, and one building was yellow-tagged. Red indicates that it is unsafe to enter an address, while yellow restricts its use.
The fact that the damage to the boardwalk is cumulative presents a particular challenge, Long Beach Fire Department spokeswoman Melanie Miller said Sunday.
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“The collapse started when (Hurricane) Marie hit,” she said, “and it grew from that. Then Hurricane Polo, now (Tropical Storm) Rachel. The damage has been continuous since then.
“There have been preparations – we even deployed 3,000-pound sandbags,” Miller added, “but there’s only so much you can do at low tide; the windows of opportunity are limited. And the dynamics work against you.”
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said the city is taking the situation “very seriously” and is emphasizing “the importance of being extremely serious in our region and in our state about climate resilience and coastal resilience.”
He said the ruined promenade is a historical thread in the fabric of the city.
“This is one of the oldest parkways in California and many memories have been made on this parkway,” he said in an interview Sunday. “If we are to retain these iconic spaces on our coastline, it will take real investment to ensure we have an iconic, quality waterfront, a resilient and climate change conscious coastline.
That investment will be costly, Richardson said.
“You need to build more climate-resilient infrastructure. Because 100 years ago, it wasn’t necessarily predicted that we would have this cadence of pressure – three major storm systems in six weeks is unprecedented in this region.”
The city of Long Beach designed a “seven-point plan,” formalized shortly after Hurricane Marie, that aims to repair what was damaged, put more sand back on the beach, create additional layers of protection and seek longer-term solutions and funding, said Laath Martin, a spokeswoman for the city manager’s office.
“In responding to (Marie), we also looked at future plans and ways to deal with (the storms) in the short, medium and long term,” Martin said. “Since then, we’ve had two additional storms. Some of the work is underway, and more will arrive within a few days, weeks or months, depending.”
For now, the City of Long Beach is in emergency response mode. This involves reinforcing the boardwalk with wood and using the aforementioned 3,000-pound sandbags to “deflect wave energy to the beach side of the bulkhead, the seawall,” Martin said. “This represents a large part of the damage. »
A drone photograph showing waves crashing against East Seaside Walk as homes collapse on the Long Beach Peninsula.
(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)
Martin said the city has fast-tracked some projects expected to start as early as the week of Oct. 19, particularly the Alamitos Bay Entrance Channel dredging project, which will move sand from the peninsula and widen the beach by about 200 feet.
“We need to do a few things before that to prepare for it,” Martin said, “so our crews can work safely in these conditions.”
Longer term, the city has retained the services of a contractor to carry out permanent repairs. The cost is estimated between $1.5 million and $3.6 million, Martin said. The money will come from the city’s Tidelands emergency reserves for coastal projects.
“As we currently use a lot of materials to make emergency repairs to keep people safe, we then have to purchase more materials to make the permanent repairs,” Martin said. “That’s why there’s such a wide range.”
Martin said the city plans to complete permanent repairs to the bulkhead and boardwalk by the end of this year.
“With El Niño, we’re expecting more storms. They’ve built the calendar around the anticipated storms to the best of our ability,” he said. “But so far in advance, you never know.”
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