Powerful waves rip another piling off SLO County pier as high surf pounds Central Coast

Massive waves pummeling the California coastline were threatening lives and seaside structures up and down the coast this week.

One person near Monterey was killed after being trapped under debris on the beach, and at least two others are missing after reportedly being swept away by waves. In Santa Cruz, a portion of the pier collapsed, plunging three people into the water who were later rescued.

How is San Luis Obispo County holding up in the storm?

The National Weather Service issued a high surf warning in effect until noon on Tuesday, warning of large breaking waves up to 25 feet with “very dangerous” rip currents at local beaches.

The Cayucos pier was closed to the public during the high surf warning, SLO County Parks Director Tanya Richardson told The Tribune.

On Monday, a support piling was ripped from the end of the pier — which was already damaged prior to the storms — and floated to shore, Richardson said.

The end of the pier has been closed to the public since it lost five pilings during a storm surge in February.

Local resident Danna Dykstra-Coy said her husband witnessed the piling breaking off the pier Monday and she later found it in the Little Cayucos Creek next to Shoreline Inn, the same spot a piling ended up at after it broke off in February.

As of Tuesday morning, Dykstra-Coy said there doesn’t appear to be any more loose piles on either side and that the end of the pier was holding up to the continuing onslaught of heavy waves.

The pier was already undergoing repairs for the damage caused in February.

Richardson said the county has received a quote and was in the process of preparing design plans for reconstruction of the damaged portion.

The draft plans were scheduled to be submitted to the county for review by the end of the month, Richardson said. The county does not expected any delays at this point, but “dependent on winter storms this could always change,” she said.

SLO County waves ‘breaking with incredible force,’ meteorologist says

While the waves in San Luis Obispo County were not quite as large as other spots in the state — where waves have reached as high as 60 feet in some places — local meteorologist John Lindsey said the long wave periods mean that even shorter waves will carry more strength.

“Since 1991, I’ve been forecasting waves along the Central Coast, and this recent swell event was the longest period/wavelength I’ve ever witnessed,” he wrote Tuesday. “The waves were heavy, breaking with incredible force.”

A wave period is the time between one peak and the next. The reason longer wave periods carry more power is because they displace a larger area of water, moving a lot more mass between breaking waves than if the peaks were shorter together.

For most swell events, the peak energy occurs at 17 seconds, Lindsey told The Tribune. This swell, the average period was 20 seconds, he said.

“It’s remarkable, to say the least,” he said.

According to Lindsey, “the trend of longer-period, more powerful swell events is expected to persist as the planet continues to warm.”

While SLO County was seeing maximum wave heights of 25 feet, some places further up the California coast were seeing over double that.

Lindsey said this is a result of the distance from the storm front. Waves lose power as they are dispersed, so the farther they move from the origin storm, the shorter they will become, Lindsey said.

This week’s swells were a direct outcome from the storm in the gulf of Alaska. While waves hitting the northern coast of California were taller because they were closer to the storm, they lost height the further they moved down the coast toward SLO County and beyond, Lindsey said.

Onlookers flocked to the shore to watch the waves

Many people came out to Morro Bay Harbor to see the impressive storm surge this Christmas Eve.

Though the weather event caused damage and posed a potential danger to people too close to the water, those standing at a safe distance were stunned by the powerful force of nature.

Joseph Bischel, a longtime Atascadero resident, said the waves were “beautiful.”

“It’s nice to see the high surf,” Biscel said, who has been watching large wave events in SLO County for over 40 years of living there. “That’s why we came down here just to, just to see the big break.”

Meteorologist predicts a dry start to January

Lindsey forecast that while the Pacific Northwest overall will get a tremendous amounts of precipitation in the coming weeks, the Central Coast will stay relatively dry into the first week of January in a classic La Niña rainfall pattern.

“We’re falling behind in rainfall at this time of year,” Lindsey said. “At this point, it’s drier than normal.”

While SLO County might get short periods of rainfall, there isn’t any indication of heavier rainfall to come before the new year, Lindsey said.

He predicted the most recent weather episode to be the last significant bout of rain for about two weeks.