Aliso Pier Still Closed After Wave Damage

Two of the three Orange County piers that took a pasting from heavy surf over the weekend were back in business Monday, but the third remained closed because of possible structural damage.

And there was still some concern that the ocean’s onslaught might not be over as large waves, cresting at eight to 10 feet, were forecast for late Monday night and into the early hours today.

A high tide of 5.7 feet was expected to occur at 4:50 a.m.

The prospect of further batterings led county officials to keep Aliso Pier in South Laguna closed.

Damage Evaluation Slated

“It’s temporarily closed and will remain so for the duration of this heavy surf,” said Larry Sweet of the Environmental Management Agency. “We’ll have to evaluate its condition and then decide when to open it.”

Sweet said the 660-foot structure had suffered mild structural damage when some concrete facings were torn away from the steel pilings they surround.

Meanwhile, it appeared that as of Monday, the Huntington Beach Pier had suffered the most from the storm-generated waves that forced it, along with the Seal Beach Pier, to be closed on Saturday.

Paul Cook, Huntington Beach’s public works director, said a preliminary inspection indicated that the 1,800-foot pier had sustained damage that could range from “a low of $25,000 to as high as $100,000.”

“But we won’t know for sure for at least two to three weeks,” he added.

‘Fender Piles’ Torn Away

The waves took out four “fender piles,” according to Cook. They are designed to protect the pier from boats and serve no structural function.

Also missing was one structural piling, and two or three others had been loosened.

“That’s the part where we don’t really know what the problem is,” Cook said. “We’re going to ask the City Council for approval to make some temporary repairs.

“Then, when it’s calmer and clearer, we can put some divers down there to see how they’re (the pilings) doing, if they’re safe enough to repair or do they have to be replaced,” he explained.

Cook said the pilings are in the area that was rebuilt after devastating storms of January, 1983, inflicted nearly $1 million in damage to the 70-year-old pier.

Seal Beach got off lightly in contrast with the near-total destruction of its pier during the storms two years ago.

‘Damage Was Very Minimal’

“We determined that the damage was very minimal and has no bearing on the structural integrity,” Acting City Manager Dan Joseph said after an inspection by engineers Monday morning.

“Three or four of the cross-members that tie the pilings together got snapped,” Joseph said. “But when you’re talking about in excess of 1,000 of these, four don’t really have much impact.”

Joseph estimated that repairs would cost “only a couple of thousand dollars at best.”

The San Clemente Pier, which was also heavily damaged in 1983, escaped unscathed last weekend.

“We had no problems,” said Steve Lashbrook, the city’s marine safety officer. “We have one loose piling, and we believe it was loose beforehand.

“We don’t get the surf like they do in Huntington. It was very big, but it was nowhere near large enough to do any damage.”

Neither pier in Newport Beach suffered from the weekend’s waves, which reached 20 feet at some points along the county’s coast.

The city’s beaches face south and southwest, for the most part. The storm was being driven by a west swell.