What Made Victims of Storm So Vulnerable?

As they picked through the rubble Tuesday, beachfront homeowners and businessmen asked themselves: “Why me?”

It’s the same question scientists have been grappling with over the years as one winter storm after another takes it toll on Southland piers, beaches, homes and seaside restaurants.

Why do these storms inflict such damage on one beach city and seem to pass right by the next?

Scientists and other observers say that what happened over the weekend in Malibu, Redondo Beach, Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach could happen almost anywhere on the Southland coast.

Distinguishing Characteristics

The factors that made this storm so potent--unusally high tides, slightly larger waves, high winds and eroded beaches--are present in many winter storms and were not particularly severe in the latest, according to oceanographers and meteorologists.

While there were some similarities in the areas that suffered most in the latest storm, such as narrow beaches and low inland areas, other coastal areas could just as easily have been hurt and, in fact, some of them took their lumps in similar 1983 winter storms.

What made the latest storm so destructive was development close to the water and the continuing erosion of beaches, said Douglas Inman, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla.

Aside from restricting building near the coast, few steps can be taken to prevent similar disasters in the future, Inman said.

He said that as more and more rivers are dammed in California, less and less sand is being deposited on the state’s beaches, interfering with the natural rejuvenating forces. In time, he said, it will lead to further erosion and eventually to even greater damage to seaside buildings.

And no beach is immune from such winter storms, he said.

In the weekend storm, “Everyone was more or less facing into it. . . . The wind started from the southwest and ended up from the northwest,” Inman said.

In south-facing Malibu, for instance, a swirling arm of wind from the upper atmosphere turned the basically westerly winds into head-on southerly squalls, said Mike Smith of WeatherData, a private forecasting firm.

Given the continuing erosion, Inman said, even average winter storms have the potential to cause great damage.

Origin of Waves

Most of the large waves were “locally generated” by the high winds, Inman said, and were not the large oceangoing waves normally associated with great tropical storms.

“The storm was not that severe,” Inman said. “This was not a (one in) 20-year storm. It was as bad in 1983” when a series of storms damaged beaches and piers from Santa Monica to San Diego.

The weekend storm seemed to randomly select its victims, exacting a toll in one city while leaving the next almost untouched.

After observing the damage to Redondo Beach by helicopter, Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) said: “What I can’t figure out is the peculiar vulnerability of this beach when its neighbors got off pretty much unscathed. Some of those businesses escaped, but the ones who got it, really got it full force.”

City officials and business owners blamed the massive damage in Redondo Beach’s King Harbor--which includes the pier--largely on the breakwater, which they say is not high enough.

Height of Breakwater

The northern portion of the three-quarter-mile-long breakwater is 22 feet high and the rest is 14 feet high. The city has been trying to get the federal government to raise the entire breakwater to 22 feet for at least 10 years. Officials of the Army Corps of Engineers estimate that the project would cost upward of $7 million.

Lt. Tom Hargett of the county lifeguards said “some beaches seem to get better surf than others and Redondo is one of them. Malibu is another one.” Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach in Orange County, also heavily damaged in this storm, are also well-known surfing spots.

Luck, said Tony Antich, director of public works in Hermosa Beach, was the reason his city suffered little damage while neighboring Redondo beach had about $16 million in storm-related damage.

“This year Mother Nature was looking favorably on Hermosa and not on Redondo,” Antich said. “We were fortunate this year” but suffered severe flooding in the 1983 storm, he said.

“I used to be in the merchant marine,” Antich said. “I learned that when the sea does its work, there’s nothing you can do but sit back and watch.”