Cleanup and repair efforts are underway along Long Beach’s Peninsula following damaged caused by a storm over the Labor Day weekend, city officials said.
The remnants of Hurricane Marie caused high tides, surf and swell that damaged a seawall and the historic boardwalk, and flooded residential streets.
As Long Beach continues supporting impacted residents, city officials said they will also assess repairs to the boardwalk and efforts to keep local beaches safe, and prepare for potential issues this winter season with Super El Niño activity expected later this year.
The storm caused waves to come over the boardwalk and onto city streets, with several homes being flooded by seawater. The Long Beach Fire Department ordered an evacuation on Sept. 7, out of an abundance of caution, and residents returned to their homes on Wednesday. The pedestrian boardwalk and surrounding beaches were also closed.
Many longtime residents on the Peninsula said the impacts of Hurricane Marie were worse than expected – though officials said they were minimized because of the city’s and community’s preparedness.
The city shared its preparedness, response and mitigation efforts in a Friday, Sept. 11, news release. The city’s emergency response structures played a vital role in mitigating impacts on the Peninsula, city officials said, with its interdepartmental coordination among the departments of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications; Public Works; Fire; Police; Health and Human Services; and Parks, Recreation and Marine, among others.
“Long Beach prepared well for the impacts of Hurricane Marie, and that preparation and the swift response of our city crews kept this situation from becoming worse,” Mayor Rex Richardson said in a statement. “Impacts of this scale are a sobering reminder of the power of Mother Nature, as well as the importance of always being prepared for an emergency. I want to thank our incredible city crews for their critical work. That work continues as we assess and continue to conduct cleanups and repairs.”
Cleanup and repair efforts are ongoing.
Efforts that have been taking place include cleaning and removing sand, trash, debris and fallen tree limbs; cleaning parking lots and marinas; addressing standing water as a result of flooding; and developing remediation plans for impacted public infrastructure, such as the boardwalk and bulkhead. Review and assessment is ongoing by professional engineers and will help determine the city’s path forward, according to the news release.
Portions of the historic boardwalk, which runs between the homes and the seawall on the ocean-facing side of the Peninsula, was damaged, and caution tape continues to block off the walkway. The city, in coordination with professional coastal engineers, will review and assess solutions to fully repair the boardwalk, officials said. Multiple site inspections were already conducted last week.
Public Works will conduct interim repairs in coordination with the Parks, Recreation and Marine Department, and Building and Safety Bureau. As reviews and assessments are still in progress, there is not yet an estimate of how long it will take or how much it will cost to repair the boardwalk, officials said. An update on the inspection and the city’s next steps is expected in the next two weeks.
Long Beach remains committed to ensuring local beaches, marinas and waterways are clean, safe and welcoming for all, according to the news release. As part of its current practice, city crews conduct routine maintenance daily along the shoreline and Peninsula, including building sand berms and conducting back passing, which harvests redeposited sand and relocates it back to where it came from.
Typically, sand is harvested at 54th and 55th places, and returned to the area of beach between 63rd and 67th places on the Peninsula to ensure public access to the coast, officials said. These ongoing efforts are conducted year-round and structurally built into the city budget to address beach erosion and safeguard the shoreline and Peninsula area.
“An added layer to these efforts, done in preparation and response for significant weather systems, such as El Niño,” the news release said, “include bringing in additional crews from Public Works and Port of Long Beach to expand the scope of existing operations, should the need arise.”
The efforts of changing operational conditions and the climate, and the more frequent occurrence of high tides and larger southern swells during hurricane season continue to create scenarios in which back passing can no longer keep up with the strong pull of sand from the beach, officials said. Long Beach’s Beach Maintenance and Public Works teams continue working to identify effective and feasible longer-term efforts.
This fall, the $9.27 million Alamitos Bay Channel Dredging Project will begin and is expected to place 415,000 cubic yards of beach-ready sand on the Peninsula. The project, approved by the City Council in August and supported by Tidelands and Marina Capital funds, is expected to extend the beachfront out about 200 feet, from 72nd Place to 63rd Place – a needed buffer to ease wave action and flooding over the boardwalk in the impact zone.
That effort, though, will not stop the ocean from pulling sand from the Peninsula with every wave, especially during the significant weather systems Long Beach continues experiencing, officials said. Back passing will need to continue to return sand back to the Peninsula each day until more permanent, long-term, man-made and environmental solutions can be identified, permitted and implemented.
“Longer-term solutions continue to be reviewed with the assistance of professional coastal engineers,” the new release said, “and any solution will require extensive permitting and approval from the California Coastal Commission.”
Extensive preparation efforts were conducted in the days leading up to and throughout the storm, city officials said, minimizing significant damage and dangerous situations along the Peninsula’s shoreline.
While efforts helped mitigate damage, portions of the bulkhead and the boardwalk sustained significant damage as conditions intensified. This led to 24 houses being evacuated between 63rd and 67th places. Only one house was yellow-tagged, meaning those who live there can enter the building to retrieve essential belongings but can’t stay there for now, because of significant damage to the pedestrian boardwalk that restricted access to the property. No houses were red-tagged or deemed completely uninhabitable because of safety hazards.
The city’s efforts to minimize damage included building sand berms along the Peninsula shoreline; conducting back passing to relocate drifted sand back to the Peninsula; installing 130 sheets of plywood boards to the seawall; installing lumber and anchors on the bulkhead as additional reinforcement; and activating sandbag centers, among other efforts.
“Our Peninsula community showed incredible strength this week, and I want to thank the residents who prepared, helped their neighbors and stepped up throughout this emergency,” Third District Councilmember Kristina Duggan said in a statement. “I also want to thank our first responders and city crews who worked around the clock to protect life and property. I spent most of the weekend on the Peninsula and saw the impacts firsthand.
“Now our focus needs to be on repairing the damage, preparing for the upcoming El Niño,” Duggan added, “and working with our coastal engineers on immediate protections and long-term solutions for the Peninsula.”
Long Beach is reassuring its residents that the city has the plans and systems in place to address natural disasters and other emergencies, but also said in its news release that residents need to do their part by preparing now.
Emergency preparedness resources are available on the city’s Department of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications website. Residents of the Peninsula are strongly encouraged to begin preparing for future potential impacts that are expected from El Niño later this year, officials said.
“We knew El Niño could bring significant challenges, but this past weekend reinforced the urgency of preparing for the months ahead,” Duggan said on social media. “I am urging residents to begin preparing now for upcoming storms, and sign up for AlertLB to receive emergency communications.”