For an Hour, It Was an Awesome Surf

For a short time Tuesday morning, Huntington Beach lived up to its “Surf City” reputation with 14- to 15-foot waves, the biggest surf recorded there in at least four years, according to city officials.

But don’t grab your surfboards just yet, lifeguards warn. The same storm that gave rise to the huge waves also elevated ocean bacteria to levels high enough to issue a beach advisory along the entire 42 miles of Orange County coast. “Swimmers should avoid Orange County coastal waters,” read the advisory issued early Tuesday by the county’s Health Care Agency.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, major sewage spills over the long weekend also forced the closure of sizable stretches of oceanfront at Huntington State, Newport and Laguna beaches, county health officials said Tuesday.

A buildup of roots in a storm drain at Park Avenue and Hidden Valley Street in Laguna Beach Sunday caused the spill of about 9,000 gallons of raw sewage. Although some 6,000 gallons were recovered, said Larry Honeybourne, a spokesman for the county’s Health Care Agency, about 3,000 gallons are believed to have eventually reached the ocean off Cleo Street, causing the closure of a half-mile stretch of beach from Hotel Laguna to Brooks Street.

County health officials say they plan to review data on water quality today to decide when the beach should be reopened.

Monday about 1,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled from a sewer line blocked by a buildup of grease in the 2400 block of Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa, eventually flowing down the Santa Ana River into the ocean. As a result, Honeybourne said, about a half-mile of beach was closed extending from the river 1,000 feet up and down the coast into Huntington State Beach and Newport Beach.

The closure, he said, is expected to last at least until the weekend.

Early Tuesday morning before most of the warnings and closures had taken effect, a few hardy souls enjoyed some mighty rides. “We had a handful of surfers out,” said Michael Baumgartner, a marine safety officer in Huntington Beach. “Guys were surfing with 10 feet of water over their heads.”

Said Honeybourne: “There are lots of surfers [in Huntington Beach] who know that when the rains come the surf gets good.”

But the storm also caused the usual runoff of bacteria, debris and chemicals into the ocean, prompting the health care agency to issue its an advisory at least through Thursday. The advisory could be extended if, as expected, more rain falls in the latter part of the week and Sunday.

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This ironic set of circumstances has its roots in the winter storm that dumped scattered rain countywide on Monday. Among other things, it also caused the record surf in Huntington Beach from about 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday. By late afternoon the waves had settled down to still impressive 5- to 8-foot swells. The surf was expected to build through Tuesday evening and today, finally tapering off sometime this afternoon.

In conditions suitable only for the most experienced of surfers, no rescues were reported, Baumgartner said. Nonetheless the waves were so strong that “two guys lost their boards because their leashes snapped.”