Pacific Coast Highway was closed in Huntington Beach on Tuesday morning as extreme high tides pushed water into streets, shut part of the coast road between Warner Avenue and Seal Beach Boulevard, and sent city crews scrambling to hold back flooding elsewhere along the shoreline.
The closure came during a day when the Southern California floods were already forcing repeated responses in Newport Beach and Long Beach. Huntington Beach officials said the road would close again Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. between Warner Avenue and Anderson Street, while Newport Beach shut the waterway beneath the Newport Boulevard Bridge for a couple of hours and later prepared to close it again Wednesday morning.
In Newport Harbor, the water hit 8 feet at 9 a.m. before reaching a record 8.4 feet around 9:45 a.m., a level last seen in the 1920s. The Newport Harbor Yacht Club boatyard flooded at the peak, and water also filled the streets at 8th and West Bay Avenue. Newport Beach suspended parking enforcement through 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, as crews kept watching vulnerable spots during the tide cycle.
That protection did not stop every problem. At The Pirate House at 35th Street and Marcus Avenue, water flooded the entire ground floor, and nearby 36th Street and Marcus Avenue were underwater, about shin deep in the street. In Long Beach, Bayshore Beach saw high tides again on Tuesday, 54th Place was closed off along the beach area, and on Naples Island homeowners dealt with water pushing through cracks in the seawall along the canal.
Sandy Gold, who was walking through the neighborhood on Tuesday, stopped at The Pirate House and called it a landmark. “This house is a landmark; it’s famous,” she said. “People come from everywhere just to see that house. I feel really bad for him. It went right through his house.”
The tide surge was part of a stretch of mega high tides that kept coastal neighborhoods on alert through Thursday. The next practical test comes Wednesday morning, when the road closures and bridge restrictions return and crews find out whether the water has eased enough to keep more streets from going under.
