Taking a Pounding : High Waves Rip Out 9 Pilings, Closing the Ventura Pier

Huge storm-driven waves battered the Ventura Pier on Monday, ripping out nine pilings and creating a powerful current that threatened to toss surfers against the wooden landmark.

City officials said they are worried that more 60-foot supports near the weakened section will splinter and break away before repairs can be made. Another strong swell from the northwest is expected to hit the Ventura coast Wednesday morning.

“If we get really huge waves and then we lost another handful in that area, there is a concern,” said building inspector Allen Bovitz. “We could lose the pier.”

The barnacle-covered pilings that tore loose were at least 50 years old and all from a section about one-third of the way down the 1,958-foot walkway. They had been found structurally sound during a $3.5-million restoration of the pier completed last year, he said.

The first ones were spotted breaking away just after dawn. They continued to wash out one-by-one through the morning as waves splashed up through the pier’s wooden planks.

Eight of the poles washed ashore south of the pier, leaving a gaping section with little support. Just one piling remained in a row that previously had five supports.

“The power in those waves is tremendous,” Bovitz said. “It just finally took its toll on that particular spot.”

Hueneme Pier suffered no damage, authorities said. And boaters at Channel Islands and Ventura harbors had no serious problems, although some fishermen chose to remain at dock.

Replacing the nine Douglas fir poles is expected to cost $25,000 to $30,000 and take at least several weeks, said Tim Jonasson, a city civil engineer.

The biggest obstacle is finding pilings that are the right size. The city already has a few on hand, but others will have to be bought from cities with wooden piers or ordered from lumber companies in Oregon.

If new ones are ordered, the repairs could take months longer because each piling is cut from a tree hand-picked in the forest, Bovitz said.

The pier, the longest of its type in California, will remain closed until the work is complete. Police were called Monday afternoon to keep fishermen and passers-by away until a temporary fence was placed at the pier’s entrance.

Bovitz, who inspected the damage, said the crashing waves caused the wooden deck to sway much more than normal. “It’s an E-ticket ride,” he said.

Dozens of surfers felt the same way.

As the swell grew through the morning, sending in sets of waves six to nine feet high, the parking lot at Surfer’s Point in Ventura grew unusually full for a Monday morning.

By 10 a.m., state lifeguards had stationed themselves just above the pier to warn surfers and body boarders about the treacherous rip currents that could sweep them into the pier.

“Attention surfer. Remove your leash and paddle straight to shore,” bellowed Ranger Jerry Weil through a loudspeaker as a teen-ager on a body board drifted toward the pier.

Surfers run into danger, he said, when they ride waves toward the pier and then try to paddle back out.

“The current’s so strong it makes it hard to paddle out,” he said.

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Lifeguards ran into the surf half a dozen times as surfers neared the pier, but no one was injured. Most managed to make a bee-line for shore before getting too close to the pilings.

“This happens every winter,” Weil said. “This is big, but not as big as it gets.”

State rangers began advising surfers to remove their leashes--the cord that tethers them to their boards--after a teen-ager became entangled in the pier’s pilings in the early 1980s and drowned.

“I was working as a lifeguard that day,” Weil said. “There was nothing anybody could do.”

The surfers who ventured into the water Monday--and some preferred to gawk from shore--expressed a healthy respect for the size of the waves.

“I haven’t been out in surf this big for a couple years,” said David Brown, 39, of Sherman Oaks. “You’ve got that adrenaline rush and a little bit of fear.”