High Tide Seeps Into Harbor’s Island Homes

A handful of residents in the unincorporated community of Sunset Island in Huntington Harbour spent Wednesday fighting flood waters that seeped into their homes and garages at high tide.

“I’m just hoping I can get the house dried out before this happens again,” said David Havins, who pumped eight inches of water from his home just east of Pacific Coast Highway.

Havins and some other island residents blamed their troubles on the 6-foot, 4-inch high tide that arrived at 7 a.m., and on Huntington Beach officials for not placing inflatable bladders that would have diverted water from the area.

The basketball-sized bladders, which are used to block storm drains, weren’t installed because the city needed drainage to handle an anticipated rainfall runoff from a storm that skirted Orange County, according to city engineers.

With no bladders and a high tide, there was nowhere for the water to go but up the storm drains, onto Bayview Drive and into two houses and half a dozen garages, according to residents.

Donald Noble, Huntington Beach public works maintenance operations manager, said the city has been “well aware” of the island’s drainage problems and “it’s unfortunate” that flooding occurred.

“We take it extremely serious when water goes into people’s homes, whether it’s in the county or not,” Noble said, “and it doesn’t please me at all. But in some instances you do what you feel is the best thing and hope that these things don’t happen.”

While early-morning gloom on Wednesday gave way to sunny skies in most of Orange County, dark clouds are expected to return today and bring scattered showers.

On Friday, say weather experts, Southern California begins a drying trend expected to last through the weekend. Temperatures may be cooler than normal, in the mid-60s to low 70s.

In Seal Beach, coastal residents got a break when the expected storm swept south instead. A train that was to deliver sand Wednesday to reinforce the city’s eroded beach was delayed, so large graders moved sand from the sea wall at the Municipal Pier to a berm protecting homes near 12th and 13th streets.

The delay was caused by arriving ships combined with railroad track repairs at the U.S. Naval Weapons Station, where the sand is scheduled to be unloaded, a public works spokeswoman said.

County flood control and coastal facilities officials said that rains earlier this week caused no major problems, but they were taking precautions by patrolling channels because of extremely high tides, expected to crest at 6 feet 8 inches at 8:16 a.m. Friday. The tides won’t go below 6 feet until Tuesday.

“Anything over 6.2 feet, we get concerned, especially when there’s any sign of a storm coming,” said Larry Paul, county coastal facilities director. “We will take appropriate actions by having staff and lifeguards monitoring along the coast.”

Meanwhile, Noble and county flood officials are to meet Friday with Sunset Island residents, who weren’t accepting official explanations of not protecting their homes by putting the rubber bladders in drainage ditches.

“If we did get a big rain and the bladders were in, we could handle two inches of rainwater on the island by pumping,” said resident Bob Wall, speaking from experience of past winters. “There’s no way we can pump out the tides. It’s natural hydraulics. We’re lower than the tides so [the water] comes up through the drains. If we have the same conditions later this week, my house is going to flood.”