Council Declares Flood Emergency

ith waves crashing a mere 10 yards from Surfside Drive as the sand washes out to sea, the city has declared a flood emergency in an attempt to protect its shoreline.

The Port Hueneme City Council’s action Wednesday initiates a bureaucratic process that is expected to result in the Army Corps of Engineers riprapping the municipal beach to slow erosion.

“It’s still uncertain to what [financial] level they will assist us,” said Tom Figg, community development director. “We’re kind of at the mercy of the bureaucracy, frankly.”

The city’s request for assistance must wend its way through layers of county and state government before reaching the federal level, a process likely to take about two weeks, he said.

By then, damage to park property on Port Hueneme Beach is expected to have begun.

“Several picnic pads and windbreaks will not survive the next two weeks,” Figg said. “We are definitely racing against the clock. The end of this month will be the big test.”

That’s when city officials fear that some of the highest tides so far this year could undercut parts of Surfside Drive.

Municipal officials say the beach has eroded severely because a sand replenishment program the corps conducts every two years was limited in scope in 1994. The program is scheduled to be implemented in November and cannot be accelerated because of environmental and federal budgetary constraints.

The federal government has paid for the replenishment program since 1960 because the Port of Hueneme’s construction in 1937 was found to disrupt the natural flow of sand that maintains the beach.

Emergency efforts to shore up the beach last occurred in 1978, when the federal government spent about $400,000 on riprap.