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Pacifica Seawall Buckles as 35-Foot Waves Flood Streets; Residents Warn Sightseers to Stay Back
A powerful Pacific swell and high tide sent waves crashing over barriers in Pacifica on Saturday, lifting and cracking a concrete seawall plate and flooding streets and highway lanes. Residents are urging wave-watchers to heed warnings as El Niño conditions promise more intense ocean behavior this season.
PACIFICA â A powerful Pacific swell combined with a midday high tide to batter the Pacifica coastline on Saturday, flooding streets and highway lanes and lifting a section of the Beach Boulevard seawall, according to residents who witnessed the damage.
The National Weather Service had issued a high surf warning from 6 p.m. Friday through 4 a.m. Sunday, cautioning that breaking waves could reach 25 to 35 feet, with occasional 50-foot sets at favored break points. The agency urged people to stay out of the water.
Savannah Peterson, who has lived on the shoreline for a decade, said she first sensed trouble Friday night when she heard a hollow, eerie sound coming from the seawall near Beach Boulevard and Salada Avenue.
"It was a haunting, almost ghostly sound," Peterson said. At dawn Saturday, she went out to check.
"Sure enough, right away, I could see that the entire concrete plate had lifted up, and now you can tell that it's buckled and falling apart," she said.
Videos Peterson captured show waves breaching the seawall and jostling the concrete plates as water surged through, spraying sediment and concrete as the waves slammed down. The city blocked off the area around the cracked seawall shortly after, Peterson said. Pacifica officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Throughout the day, Peterson said she watched the surf hurl chunks of concrete into the street. She worries the heavy fragments could injure the many visitors who have flocked to her neighborhood to watch the spectacle.
She was particularly dismayed to see people turning their backs to the ocean or holding small children and pets out over the water.
"We want you to come out to Pacifica and look at our beautiful coastline, however, we do not want your story to be the one that makes national headlines because you didn't heed warnings about sneaker waves or debris that comes up in a 30-foot wall of water," Peterson said.
Anthony Herrera, another Pacifica resident who watched the waves from a distance Saturday, echoed that message.
"Just respect it, enjoy it, just keep yourself out of the way so you don't cause any other problems," Herrera said. "Mother Nature, she doesn't care about what you got going on, you gotta respect her."
Forecasters expect more intense ocean behavior this year as El Niño conditions take hold, making the risks of sneaker waves and flying debris all the more pressing. Residents say the safest way to appreciate the coast is from a distance â and with an eye on the water at all times.