Newport Beach officials discuss sand troubles, flooding, while residents voice concern

Newport Beach city leaders took a deeper dive Tuesday night, Oct. 13, on the coastal town’s struggles with flooding and eroding coastlines, and what is being done now to keep sand on the beach, but some community members were focused on whether there had been enough planning ahead of last week’s swell event that sent seawater flooding into the streets.

Tuesday night’s City Council meeting was meant as a study session, already on the books for weeks, to educate elected officials on the history of sand movement along the coast and projects through the years that have kept sand on the beach and to take a look at work planned in the future after a summer of heavy surf has battered the shoreline.

It was a coincidence the meeting’s timing ended up being just after the flooding that dominated news headlines before the weekend. The study session became a place where frustrated residents questioned the city’s preparations.

A hurricane swell and an overlapping south swell combined with an unusually high tide on Friday, flooding blocks of the Balboa Peninsula. City workers scrambled to pump the salt water back to the ocean and build bigger berms before the weekend when Tropical Storm Rachel was expected to strengthen her hold on the region.

“This was not a surprise to the city,” said Denise Oberman, who said her house was flooded on Friday. “The city has been aware of those risky conditions and there is more than enough information in the public domain for policy makers to be able to document and track.”

Berms near her home were only 18 to 24 inches, she said, “immediately wiped out.”

Ideas were kicked around Tuesday night on how to keep and maintain more sand on the beach as a buffer between the ocean and nearby infrastructure, and ways the city can be proactive, rather than reactive.

With high tides expected again at the end of the month, and extreme king tides expected during Thanksgiving and Christmas, residents and city officials worry about a repeat of flooding.

The meeting started with Public Works Director Dave Webb giving a historical look at the city’s sand supply.

“Our beaches are affected by wind, waves and swells,” he said. “We have fine-sand beaches, it’s trickier to keep on the beach.”

The stretch of coast is naturally narrow, but in 1935 the federal government dredged about 7.9 cubic yards of sand and put it along the 5.6 miles of beach. After the dredging, beaches were “huge,” and most areas of the peninsula were stable until about 2018.

Groin jetties, regularly filled with sand from the Santa Ana River, have also helped keep West Newport’s beaches wide, an area where homes were falling into the ocean in the 1960s.

Since 2022, storms have been eating away at the beaches at a faster pace. This year has been a big hurricane season, with 20 storms so far this summer.

“We monitor our beaches, using this information to feed into other agencies to see if we can get resources and data,” Webb said, noting the city partners with UC Irvine experts.

Looking ahead, a project to bring 100,000 cubic yards of sand from the Santa Ana River to the West Newport groin jetties is expected to start in November to help widen that beach.

At the Wedge, the city is exploring using hydraulic dredging to pump sand onto the beach, though permitting may be a challenge, Webb said, with hopes that it could start in spring of 2027.

But some worried the efforts could be too late, and wanted to know what the city is going to do to keep residents’ homes safe now.

Resident Adam Leverenz said the half a million dollars the city estimated spending on the recent response should have been spent proactively preparing and communicating between departments.

“I’m not sure what happened, but it seems like there should have been more anticipation,” he said. “The things that happened after-the-fact should have never happened.”

Resident Walter Stahr, who is also running for council, asked why larger berms weren’t built a week ago to prevent the flooding, reading off to the City Council newspaper headlines warning about Kelvin waves that are also raising the water level.

“I think the residents of the peninsula deserve an honest answer — did the council do what it needed to do ahead of time?” he asked.

Jack Grace, his baby in his arms, told the council about helping neighbors with sandbags.

“I don’t want to dwell too much on what happened in the past. I don’t think it was a surprise to anyone who lives there,” he said, but emphasized that moving sand in November seems too late and efforts should be underway now to see if sand can be brought from Huntington Beach or expedited from the Santa Ana River.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out,” he said. “We need to keep it up. Two weeks is too late.”

Much of the meeting ended up being dedicated to talking about the city’s response last weekend, but that included kudos and praise given for the around-the-clock work by city staff, other partner agencies, volunteers and residents who stepped up in a time of need.

“We have a world-class team,” Councilmember Joe Stapleton said. “Also, (kudos) to the residents. In times of crisis, we do what we do and all help each other. One of the bright spots for me is the people of Newport Beach stepping up and helping.”