California braces for monster waves, biggest in a decade

California surfers welcome the monster swells generated by Hurricane Marie. But others are fortifying beaches to protect property.

The surf was churning in Southern California, and even bigger waves were brewing.

Surfers and gawkers crowded beaches Tuesday while workers hurried to fortify beaches and sandbag low-lying areas against flooding from the serious surf expected to peak Wednesday, brought on by Hurricane Marie spinning off Mexico's Pacific coast.

At The Wedge in Newport Beach, a famous surfing spot, dozens lined the beach to watch bodysurfers get pounded by storm-driven waves up to 10 feet high. People took photos and video and clapped, whistled, and cheered when a bodysurfer caught one of the swells.

Lifeguards with flippers and rescue batons at the ready patrolled the edge of the water and two rescue boats kept an eye on the dozen or so brave souls in the water. An ambulance was on stand-by near the beach.

Would-be big-wave surfers who came out said they were hoping for swells up to 30 feet Wednesday. If that materializes, it will be the biggest wave event at The Wedge since 1997, when Hurricane Linda produced monster swells, said Tim Burnham, who's making a documentary about the famed surfing locale.

"This is the stuff that you dream of: rainbows, unicorns, Southern Hemi swells, hurricane swells," he said as he dried off from a session in the waves.

"You definitely have a healthy amount of fear," Burnham said. "You know, you don't want to be stupid. You're here to push yourself, but at the end of the day you want to go home to your family."

Some 60 miles to the northwest in Malibu, where waves were 6-to-8 feet high, a surfer was pulled unconscious from the water at Surfrider Beach on Tuesday and later died at a hospital, authorities said. It was not clear whether the death was related to the surf and may have been from a medical condition, Kyle Daniels, a Los Angeles County lifeguard captain, told the Orange County Register.

The National Weather Service said beaches stretching 100 miles up the Southern California coast would see large waves and rip currents. Swimmers and surfers were urged to be aware of the dangerous conditions.

In the city of Long Beach's Peninsula neighborhood, residents watched as bulldozers built huge sand berms between the ocean and their homes. Several took the warning to heart and shoveled sand into bags to place around their garage doors and entryways.

Deborah Popek, who's lived in the area 20 years, took a walk along the boardwalk with her cat, Sophie, to check the surf and see how neighbors were preparing. She's had flooding in the past.

"It's always at the last minute that everybody panics because, you know, we don't expect things to happen," she said. "But they're really taking things seriously because the sandbar is as high as they've ever built it right now."

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Weber contributed from Los Angeles.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to California braces for monster waves, biggest in a decade
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0827/California-braces-for-monster-waves-biggest-in-a-decade
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe