For many locals, it feels like Santa Cruz’s beautiful coastline is being battered like never before.
Waves from severe winter storms and tsunamis have caused millions of dollars in damage to the wharf and marina in recent years, including an onslaught of dangerous waves this week that swept nearly 150 meters of the wharf out to sea.
A large section of the 100-year-old dock broke free from the entire building amid turbulence on Monday, sending three people – all survivors – into the sea, sending the bathroom floating for miles south and leaving onlookers stunned.
“The port has been there for over 100 years, and this is the first time I can remember something like this happening,” said Gino Marini, owner of Marini’s Candies, which has a convenience store not far from where part of the dock was broken into. is turned off. His family’s business has been in the fishery for 40 years, and although he remembers storms that caused a lot of damage – breaking pilings or wrecking boats – there has never been a fall this big.
The latest onslaught from the sea worries officials and locals, who wonder how frequent and dangerous high tides in Santa Cruz could be, made worse by warmer weather that raises sea levels and pumps more energy into the waves.
“Mother Nature holds the cards,” Santa Cruz Assistant City Manager Michelle Templeton said at a press conference this week. “We know that these western floods continue to grow in strength, and we will continue to assess the ongoing damage to see how we will proceed.”
Dangerous surf that rolled into Monterey Bay earlier this week was also blamed for the death of at least one person who was trapped under debris and left another person missing at sea, officials said. Both incidents occurred south of Santa Cruz.
The city’s marina remains closed as officials assess its stability and prepare for an approaching second wave that is also expected to bring high surf, with waves of up to 30 feet in some parts of Northern California. However, meteorologists say that the next storm will not bring as strong a swell as those that hit the port on Monday.
But this is just the latest incident of major damage recorded in the port of Santa Cruz.
Almost a year ago to the day, another winter storm hit the Santa Cruz harbor, causing so much damage that it was temporarily closed to the public. The city authorities have finally started to repair many things including demolishing the restaurant at the end of the wharf – which was part of the section that was washed away by the water this week. The repairs were expected to be completed in March.
A year earlier, a tsunami caused by the eruption of a volcano in Tonga brought great disruption to the port of Santa Cruz, causing an estimated $6 million in damage. The tsunami coincided with high tides, flooding parts of Santa Cruz that had never taken water before, flooding parking lots and power transformers.
However, that tsunami was not as bad as the one that hit California in 2011, passing through the Santa Cruz Harbor, pushing and blowing up boats together, sinking at least 14 and injuring many others. State officials reported more than $100 million in damage along its entire coastline from the event, noting that nearly all of the ports in Santa Cruz and Crescent City were damaged or destroyed.
But despite its troubled history with maritime disasters, meteorologists say Santa Cruz is strategically positioned — facing south on Monterey Bay. That often shelters the coastal city from the worst waves that hit Northern California.
“The way the Santa Cruz plume faces, it’s usually more protected from northwesterly flooding,” said Brayden Murdoch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey. “Typically, the more swell we get in the northwest, the harder it is for the waves to get around the Santa Cruz curve.”
And those northwesterly waves are the strongest to hit the Golden State, he said.
But, when storms move further south than a typical winter storm — as happened Monday — Murdoch said that could leave Santa Cruz more vulnerable to strong waves, and less accustomed to their fury.
“When the storm took hold, the area associated with it was almost to the west,” Murdoch said. Although strong currents from that unusual direction, he said, could develop this time of year, hitting Santa Cruz directly.
When strong waves come from the south – as happened during the Tonga tsunami – Santa Cruz is most vulnerable, Murdoch said, although he noted that such strong events from that area are unlikely.
“It’s quite an event where we swell a lot in the southwest,” Murdoch said. “But if it happens it can cause a lot of damage.”
But mostly, officials say there are many unknowns when it comes to predicting how strong a storm will be and where it will come from — and how vulnerable a city like Santa Cruz might be.
“It depends on each system as it moves across the Pacific,” said Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Monterey. “Every storm is a little different.”
Despite Santa Cruz’s history and what happened this week, Marini of the candy store said he has full confidence in what remains of the dock – a large number of it – even though officials have closed it for further inspection.
“We’ve been there, we’ve seen a lot,” said Marini, 48. “In our nearly 41 years of existence, I think we’ve closed 10 days with things like this. … The waves got bigger.”
He blames ongoing construction at the end of the hole for weakening it at the worst possible time.
“Before, we might not be in this situation,” said Marini. “It was just that one part that wasn’t that strong.”
His biggest concern right now is his business, along with other small shops and restaurants on the wharf that have all been forced to remain closed during what is usually the busiest time of the year.
“In general, this is the time for us to flourish,” said Marini. He said he received an update Thursday from officials about ongoing testing, but no clear update on reopening.
“We are concerned that this may take longer than we would like it to take,” he said. “The bills are still coming in.”
It is not only a concern for him, he said, but also for his nearly 25 employees, who will no longer be able to schedule work hours. So for now he’s hoping for a quick, safe reopening of the port.
“I hope people are not afraid to come back here,” he said. “We rely on tourists, we rely on local people.”
Times Staff writers Nathan Solis, Clara Harter and Salvador Hernandez contributed to this report.
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