City Seeks Emergency Flood Aid

Railroad cars containing 100,000 cubic yards of sand could start moving within days from Palmdale to the surf-battered Seal Beach coastline in an effort to stave off a repeat of this week’s flooding.

The California Coastal Commission could decide as early as Monday whether to grant Seal Beach officials their request for an emergency permit so that a long-planned beach widening project can begin several weeks early.

The goal: to widen the area where 10- to 20-foot waves surged in the predawn hours Thursday, damaging three homes and transforming Seal Beach into a symbol of what El Nino-related storms could hold in store this winter for the Southern California coast.

“Unless the beach is widened, this will reoccur,” Seal Beach Mayor Marilyn Bruce Hastings cautioned Friday morning as she surveyed the makeshift berm hastily built to protect waterfront homes.

As she spoke, life was slowly returning to normal on Seal Beach’s shores. As the sun burned through the morning clouds, bulldozers carved a channel to allow flood water to drain to the sea. Children slid down the sandy berm and splashed in a puddle so big it was almost a lake. And surfers relished larger-than-normal waves that lingered after the storm.

But many residents remained on alert, damp sandbags still stacked outside their homes.

Some are angry with city officials for not acting earlier to erect the sand wall that is put up every winter in front of vulnerable beach homes.

“They say this is a surprise, but they were warned. All month, they’ve been warned about the storms coming. What did they do? Nothing,” said Stu Grandel, who has lived in his beachfront home for a quarter-century.

But some city officials said many owners of beachfront homes complain that when the berm goes up, it blocks their view of the ocean.

“It’s a terrible Catch-22 the city is in,” Hastings said.

Now city officials hope a wider beach will provide better protection. They sent an appeal Thursday to the Coastal Commission to allow beach widening to begin early.

The commission staff already favors the plan, which is scheduled for an Oct. 7 vote by commissioners, but an emergency permit would allow work to begin as early as a week from Monday. The work could be finished by Christmas, said Steve Badum, city director of public works.

Plans call for widening some portions of East Beach by 65 to 70 feet, using as much as 100,000 cubic yards of sand from a quarry near Palmdale. The work would take six to eight weeks. Most sand would be distributed between 12th Street and Neptune Avenue, and ocean currents would move some of it west toward Seal Beach Pier.

The $1.1-million project would be funded largely by $813,000 approved in this year’s state budget, with the city financing the rest, said Chris Webb, coastal scientist with Moffatt & Nichol Engineers, which is working for the city on the sand project.

On Friday, stacks of sandbags still stood at the entrance to the beachfront home of Aram Keusayan, who arrived home Thursday morning from visiting the pyramids in Egypt to find flood waters had covered his parquet wood floors, soaking carpets and seeping into his garage. Across the street, 18 inches of water had soaked Dave Spory’s garage. He pointed to a trunk filled with documents, files and books. “I’m afraid to open it,” he said.

But some greeted the ocean swells with more enthusiasm.

Surfer Chad Barba spent hours surfing Thursday and returned Friday for more. His assessment of this week’s conditions: “Big. And fun.”

Times staff writer Janet Wilson contributed to this report.