Seal Beach Pier Patched Up, Back in Action : Recreation: Fire-damaged landmark reopens in time for holiday crowds, and it comes none too soon for antsy regulars.

All was well once again Saturday with the Liars Club.

The fish were biting, it was the start of Independence Day weekend and the Seal Beach Pier had finally reopened.

The May 21 fire not only did $350,000 in damage and closed a large section at the middle of the wooden pier, but it disrupted a way of life for the handful of fishermen who congregate there every weekend. For them, the pier means friendly conversation as well as recreation, said Lloyd Murray, a chatty Seal Beach resident of 50 years who nicknamed the local fishing group the Liars Club.

“My life was coming undone,” said Murray, 67, a retired McDonnell Douglas employee who started work at the defense giant “even before McDonnell came aboard.”

“I spent a lot of happy hours on this pier,” he said. “You know, criminals always return to the scene of the crime.”

Fellow club member Kevin Dufresne fished elsewhere while the pier was closed but said it just wasn’t the same.

“I went to Belmont (Pier) a couple of times, but this is where our friends are,” said Dufresne, 40, an auto parts salesman from Bellflower. “We have our own clique here. We all come out and visit.”

On a warm, sunny Saturday, Seal Beach returned to a welcome normalcy with the reopening of the landmark pier at 6 a.m. For the first time in more than a month, the beach crowds could once again stroll to the end of the 1,865-foot pier, the county’s longest.

Out at the end of the pier, the employees at Ruby’s, a replica 1950s-era diner, had spent all day Friday and Saturday morning scrambling to restock, reassemble and clean the restaurant for its own reopening. The doors finally opened about 1 p.m. and manager Greg Brown said business was steady all day.

Most of the diner’s employees found work at other Ruby’s restaurants around Orange County during the closure, Brown said.

“Fortunately it was summertime and business had picked up so they could use our employees,” said Brown, 37, of Seal Beach. “This turned out to be an opportune time for this to happen. It all worked out pretty well.”

For Julian and Barbara Bailey of Seal Beach, the Saturday morning reopening meant they could return to their daily stroll. The pier is an extension of Seal Beach’s Main Street, which is the center of the old-fashioned charm of the community, said Julian Bailey, 73, a retired insurance brokerage president.

“This is like the beach towns we had when we were growing up,” Bailey said.

Beach life has not been the same in this coastal community since the midsection of the landmark pier burst into flames about 3 p.m. May 21, sending out plumes of thick black smoke and temporarily stranding about 100 pier visitors at the end of the boardwalk.

Fire officials initially thought an electrical problem had started the blaze but now believe it was caused by coals from a barbecue grill that dropped under the pier and ignited a gas line.

The popular pier has seen a battering array of disasters during its lifetime. It was first built in 1906, destroyed by storm, and then rebuilt in its present form in 1938.

The May 21 fire was the third time in the last decade alone that it has been closed for repairs.

In 1983 a fierce winter storm churned up huge waves that damaged the pier’s midsection. Then, in 1992, a fire sparked by electrical wires in a lifeguard tower burned the same general area as the latest fire. Only a few months later the Big Bear earthquake cracked the pier’s support pilings.

The reopening Saturday is only temporary and city officials plan to close the pier again in the fall for a final phase of repairs.