Storm of ’83 Memories Flood Back : Del Mar Beachfront Hit Hard; Seawall Fight Flares Anew

After a winter storm in 1983 smashed the windows and flooded his beachfront Poseidon Restaurant in Del Mar, owner Tom Ranglas received approval to build a seawall as protection against future fury.

Later, however, Ranglas voluntarily submitted to negotiations with a group of beach preservationists who opposed large walls cutting into the public beach. Months of negotiations proved futile and the seawall was never built.

Monday, as he shoveled water and sand and broken glass from his once-again flooded restaurant, Ranglas wished he had stood his ground.

“The rip-rap (large boulders) helped,” Ranglas said sadly, “but not as much as a seawall. Now I’m out of business again. I wanted to cooperate, but now look what happened. I tried to be prepared.”

The wreckage at the Poseidon on Monday also touched off a political storm in Del Mar over the always volatile issue of beach access versus property rights of beach homeowners.

A half-dozen homes along the Del Mar coast were flooded or had their windows smashed by high surf, in particular a wave described by residents as “the 8:01 a.m. monster.”

At a Del Mar City Hall press conference to announce a state of emergency in the tiny city, Councilman Scott Barnett leveled a blast at beach preservationists and Councilwoman Brooke Eisenberg for their role in thwarting Poseidon’s Ranglas from building a seawall.

“They bear a lot of responsibility for the destruction at the Poseidon and other beachfront properties,” Barnett said. “As a member of the (council’s) beachfront committee, I’m sick to my stomach that I agreed to the negotiations. If we hadn’t listened to the obstructionists, the Poseidon would not have been damaged as severely.”

Eisenberg, contacted later, said that the Poseidon seawall was to have been part of a controversial plan for a seawall lining the entire length of the Del Mar beach.

“It’s always horrible and sad to see one person lose property,” Eisenberg said, “but the Poseidon seawall was not the answer. It was more than the community was willing to accept.”

Beach Encroachment

The Poseidon seawall would have been constructed at least 20 feet west of the restaurant’s property line, an alignment that angered preservationists because it would have walled off part of the public beach.

A similar barrier--the 480-foot-long wall between 24th and 26th streets that the 4th District Court of Appeal has ordered torn down because it encroached on a public beach--actually spared homes from major damage on Sunday.

Still, after surveying Del Mar’s coastline, Eisenberg said she is not convinced that a seawall closer to the property line--and therefore less controversial--would not provide as much protection as one extended into public beach.

Del Mar Mayor Ronnie Delaney, whose non-beachfront home was one of four in Del Mar without power for more than 24 hours, declared a state of emergency and ordered Coast Boulevard and the beaches off-limits to the public. It was the first such order since the January, 1983, storm.

A 10-person crew from the California Conservation Corps helped clean away the tree limbs and uprooted bushes and sweep away pools of standing water in town. All 35 members of the Fire Department were on alert.

Piling Up Sand

Emergency permits were being issued to allow property owners to haul in rip-rap or hire bulldozers to pile sand near their beachfront decks for protection.

At midday, two bulldozers were busy at work, including one outside the Poseidon.

Property owners and Spanish-speaking day laborers were filling sandbags as insurance against the expected assault during this morning’s high tide. Windows were covered with plywood.

“We thought the worst was over when that monster hit at 8:01 a.m. It was 10, maybe 15 feet,” said Mike Koehler, 22, a cook, sharing a small beachfront home with several roommates. He said he was on a deck facing the ocean during the storm.

“It was green and it pushed all of us back to the house without warning,” he said.

Pete Keppel, property manager for a 9,000-square-foot home he hopes to sell for upward of $4 million, spent the day filling sandbags and expecting the worst. He estimated the cost at nearly $3,000 for the sandbags and labor.

“When you live near the ocean, you have to expect things like this to happen,” he said. “We expect high tides at the end of December, but this one was such a freak. It caught everybody by surprise.”

At the Poseidon, owner Ranglas hopes to reopen within a week. The adjacent Jake’s Restaurant, helped by pilings and boarded-up windows, escaped unscathed.

“All we can do is clean up and start over,” Ranglas said.

Even if the storm subsides today, beach politics are sure to rage a while longer in Del Mar.

On April 5, Del Mar voters will consider a ballot measure to further restrict where the city’s 90-plus beachfront property owners can build seawalls. The measure qualified for the ballot through a signature-gathering campaign by beach preservationists.