Eroding Confidence : Surfside Residents Worry Beach Won’t Weather Storms

On that gray winter’s day, retired ship captain Dick Maul stood on his front patio at 6 a.m. and watched the thundering surf advance. But he had no time to move when the seven-foot wave crashed through his sliding glass doors, surging into his living room, knocking his wife and dachshund off the ground and flooding him in water up to his neck.

Maul, 72, and other longtime residents in the oceanfront community of Surfside still talk about that winter of ‘83, when storm waves damaged 130 homes--half of the dwellings--and tossed 500-pound boulders from a rock wall through windows.

With this year’s winter approaching, residents worry that their homes again will become the targets of punishing storms because a crucial sand replenishment program, which rebuilds the thin stretch of beach protecting their homes, has been canceled for lack of federal funding.

“If it’s a winter like ‘83,” said Maul, who had $45,000 worth of damage, “it would wash a lot of these homes away completely, no question about it.”

Residents say the beach’s condition is the worst they’ve seen. Already, a few are so concerned about the coming storm season that they started boarding up their windows, packing up patio furniture and digging six-foot-deep trenches underneath their houses to catch any surging tide.

Others anxiously watch their last line of defense drift away with each crashing wave--the 30- to 60-foot strip of sand that stands between them and the ocean.

“And remember,” said homeowner John Kriss, 54, “there was more sand then [in ‘83] than there is now, and the concern is that we’re not getting to get any more for at least a year.”

Meanwhile, residents say there’s little they can do except stock up on sandbags and hope the winter is a dry one.

“I think what’s going to bother people is the fear--hearing those waves and knowing a storm is coming,” said Kriss, who awoke in the ’83 storm when he heard the roof of his car hit the ceiling of his flooded garage. “How do you go to bed at night if you know a storm is coming?”

The sand erosion problem started in the early 1940s with the construction of a jetty for the neighboring Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station. The jetty cuts into the natural flow of sand and silt that otherwise would replenish the Surfside shoreline and other beaches to the south, including Orange County’s Sunset Beach, Bolsa Chica State Beach, Huntington Beach, Huntington State Beach and Newport Beach. Also, ocean swells bump off the jetty, producing a type of wave that eats at the northwest part of Surfside’s beach.

As a result, agencies overseeing the beaches pay for the $10-million replenishment program that was to deposit 1.8 million cubic yards of sand on Surfside’s shores. Agencies had agreed to fortify the beach once every five years, due this month. According to the agreement, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pays 67%, while the remaining cost is shared by the state, the county, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and the Surfside Storm Water Protection Tax District.

This year, despite Orange County’s bankruptcy, all of the local agencies and the state came up with their share of the costs, said Larry Paul, the county Environmental Management Agency’s manager of coastal facilities.

“It is absolutely amazing when you consider the troubled times everyone is in,” Paul said.

Corps officials said they did not expect local and state funding to get approved so did not include funds for Surfside in their budget. But “we will do everything we can to reschedule it” for next year, said corps spokesman Fred-Otto Egeler.

Residents say they can’t wait that long. In the past couple years, intense storms have battered Orange County--in January, the rain total was 11.91 inches in Santa Ana, the county’s official measuring spot, exceeding the previous high for the month of 11.47 inches, set in 1993.

This winter’s rainfall is expected to be normal, about nine inches, said Steve Pryor, a meteorologist with WeatherData, which provides forecasts for The Times. But meteorologists cannot predict the movement of storms this far ahead, he said.

In ‘83, Surfside residents knew a storm was coming, but they didn’t know how big; no one had even sandbagged. But the storm attacked the county with wind, rain and high tides, buckling part of Seal Beach Pier. Network TV news cameras captured Surfside residents bailing out their flooded homes. For four days, the community had no electricity or gas.

Usually, residents in the close-knit community of 700 people welcome the waves--the playground of porpoises, the lullaby to which they sleep, the home of halibut, surfperch and other fishermen’s delight. But come winter, their boxy wood-and-stucco homes--in periwinkle blue and cream, in mochas and chocolate brown, some selling for more than $700,000--are fodder for the violent surf.

On a recent afternoon, a gentle surf lapped at the feet of retired airline pilot Gino Salegui. Under a cloudless sky, he watched the waves crash against the jetty. The serenity is misleading, he said--winter’s wrath can’t be far behind.

“Nature’s mad,” Salegui warned. “Nature’s mad.”

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Shifting Sands

Surfside residents worry that the 30 to 60 feet of sand that stand between them and the ocean will be swept to sea by winter’s storms. Causes for the erosion:

1) Runoff: Development along San Gabriel River has reduced flow of sand and silt

2) Sand interruption: Jetties interrupt southerly flow of sand and silt

3) Reflective waves: Bounce off jetties, increase erosion

4) Feeder beach: Currents shift sand from Surfside to southerly beaches

Source: Times reports

Researched by DAVID REYES / Los Angeles Times