Oil’s Odor Spread the Bad News : Beachfront: People’s worst fears began to materialize in Surf City. The smell ‘socked you right in the face,’ a lifelong resident said.

In the beginning, it was the smell that signaled that trouble was bearing down on Surf City.

At first, of course, the odor was faint and people did not give it much thought. But as it got stronger, as the smell wafted toward the coast from out in the sea, people’s worst fears began to materialize.

Oil spill. The two dirty words that all California beach-lovers have come to despise were suddenly on everyone’s lips in Huntington Beach.

“It just socked you right in the face,” said Jeffrey Krips, 34, a lifelong resident of Huntington Beach. He and his son, Frank, were hit by the smell as they left a seaside restaurant. Immediately, both father and son knew the stakes.

“Frank wanted to go get a video camera to take pictures of all the animals we’re going to lose,” the elder Krips said.

Any view of the crippled American Trader quickly disappeared into the darkness as word of the spill spread. By the middle of the evening, onlookers gathered in small groups, some peering into the gloomy darkness with binoculars and wondering how soon the oil would be upon them. Bystanders said they were surprised to discover that the smell was pungent to the point of being overpowering in a given spot, then barely noticeable just dozens of yards away.

For beachcombers, the early reactions predictably bordered on the morbid. “Oh, goodness,” said Janice Belk, who with her husband bicycles along the Huntington Beach shore every morning, taking special delight in surfers.

“We won’t be seeing the surfers,” she said. “We’ll be seeing the dead fish and the dead birds.”

Diane Tuko, a bartender at Cagney’s by the Sea on Ocean Avenue at Main Street, arrived for work about 6 p.m. As she got out of the car, the smell stunned her.

“It smelled like everyone in the world was putting gas in their car at the same time,” she said.

To Jeffrey Krips, the long-feared spill only reinforced his worst fears and his lamenting for what used to be: “I remember when Huntington Beach--you could walk out on the pier and almost see the bottom of the sea. And now you put on a mask, and you can’t see nothing. It’s so scuzzy and dirty.”

That is not to say that Surf City had not been a victim before.

Mother Nature did a number on the Huntington Beach Pier in 1983, when a violent storm ripped out 30 pilings and 500 square feet of deck and sub-structure. When the storm left, the End Cafe and a bait shack teetered at the end of the pier. Demolition crews finished the job on them.

Then, in January, 1988, two days of heavy surf knocked into the sea 250 feet of pier, including the rebuilt End Cafe. The rest of the pier, judged structurally unsound, is now closed, pending efforts to raise money to rebuild it.

But that was nature; this was man.

Because Huntington Beach holds a fond spot in the hearts of surfers and other lovers of the myths of a simpler California, the news was especially disheartening.

Michael Christensen, 24, grew up on the water along Huntington Beach. His passions are surfing, scuba diving and sailing--a Californian in love with the ocean.

“We hear about things like the Alaska accident and we think, ‘Oh, it could never happen to us,’ ” Christensen said. “But it’s happening--right now.

“When you look at your own hometown, you can’t imagine it. . . . In the summertime, you step in it (oil) every once in a while. You’ll get a glob on your foot, and it won’t come off unless you use acetone or fingernail polish remover.

“That’s just a little bit, but how much are they saying (was spilled)? I just can’t imagine it.”

Staff Writer Jerry Hicks contributed to this report.

DRY HOLES: Huntington Beach once was dotted with oil rigs. But times are a-changin’ and the number has drastically declined. N1