Storm-Damaged Ventura Pier Could Reopen Today : Safety: City begins wave forecast program to protect public during high surf. Engineer’s report will analyze factors in structure’s partial collapse.

Hoping to open the remaining span of the Ventura Pier today, city officials instituted a weekly wave forecasting program to signal periods of heavy surf when the pier should be closed to the public.

Public Works Director Ron Calkins said the city will carefully monitor wave forecasts during the winter to safeguard the public.

“As the surf increases, we will have a procedure in place to close during periods of heavy surf,” Calkins told the City Council in an update on the battered pier.

About 420 feet of the city’s 1,958-foot-long timber pier was torn from the seaward end by high seas Wednesday.

In his report, Calkins said a Bay Area coastal engineer specializing in wooden piers examined the city’s broken landmark late last week and will return next month with a diagnosis of why it was so badly damaged during the storm.

“We are obviously thinking a lot about why the end of the pier failed,” Calkins said. “What we’d like to know is, ‘Did anything else contribute to its failure?’ ”

Charles Rauw, a coastal engineer based in Martinez, Calif., was hired to do the study that officials hope will clarify what led to the partial collapse of the 123-year-old structure. Rauw will be paid no more than $5,000 for the study. A final report is expected by mid-January.

City officials said they believe the end of the pier was struck repeatedly by 18- to 20-foot waves before dawn Wednesday, but officials have not ruled out the possibility of a structural flaw.

By examining chunks of torn decking and wood pilings that washed up on nearby beaches, the engineer will try to reconstruct the factors contributing to the pier’s failure, Calkins said.

Beyond the initial damage assessment, Calkins said, it will take city engineers three to four months to come up with recommendations on how to rebuild the structure, which had been known as the longest wooden pier in the state.

City leaders have said they want to rebuild the pier, which is considered a historic landmark and a key to Ventura’s efforts to boost tourism.

Councilman Jim Monahan questioned whether the city would lose its status as home to the state’s longest wooden pier if the city elected not to restore the 420 feet of pier torn off last week. But city officials said they did not know the answer.

“Our claim to fame is that we have the longest wooden pier,” Monahan said. City officials said they were uncertain if a shortened pier would rob the city of its honor.

In addition, Councilman Jim Friedman questioned whether the city’s insurance policy would cover the costs of stronger but more expensive materials to restore the pier.

Mike Solomon, the city’s budget and risk manager, said the insurance only covers the replacement value of the wooden pier. “If we have to do more than that, the city would have to foot the difference,” Solomon said.

Meanwhile, city crews have removed about 20 feet of timber decking from the pier’s end that was damaged but not swept away during the storm.

Some debris from the pier that washed up on nearby San Buenaventura Beach, and even Hollywood Beach in Oxnard, has also been removed.

But the largest pilings remain on a section of fenced-off beach near San Jon Road.