Wharf
Started: 2025-01-19 19:55:25
Submitted: 2025-01-19 21:15:21
Visibility: World-readable
Seeing debris from the Santa Cruz Wharf washed up on Seabright Beach
Two days before Christmas, in the midst of a high-surf warning for the Central California coast, a large wave destroyed the end of the Santa Cruz Wharf. The end of the wharf was closed at the time for construction to repair and strengthen the wharf, but there were three people on the wharf involved in the repair who found themselves drifting out to sea. One rescued themself; the other two needed to be rescued. I first learned about the event from social media; then I watched as a series of local, regional, national, and international news outlets picked up the story. For forty-eight hours Santa Cruz dominated the news cycle.
The next day, on Christmas Eve, I dropped by Seabright Beach (my nearest beach), which happens to be immediately down-current from the wharf, so the entire half-mile of sand was covered in debris.
The first thing that struck me, as I walked on the sand on the beach around the debris that had been washed up, was just how much material there was on the beach. The wave had destroyed a hundred feet of pier, which had broken up into smaller pieces as traveled in the choppy water. The next thing I noticed was just how far up the beach the debris had been washed. This meant that, at high tide and in heavy surf, the waves pushed fifty-foot-long pier pilings and sections of deck and everything else on the beach hundreds of feet from the water, across the sand that I was walking on. I did not want to be on the beach in those conditions. But by the time I walked on the beach the tide was out and the surf had subsided somewhat, but I kept an eye on the waves so I wouldn't be surprised by the water.
Most of the debris was recognizable, in some fashion or another. There was a small boat that looked like it would be used to travel between the wharf and boats moored in the anchorage. There was a toolchest resting on its side in the sand. I found an informational sign talking about the sea lions that hang out on the horizontal stabilizing beams below the deck, barking at each other like frat boys.
On the beach I found a section of deck, sitting horizontally on the beach, as if it were still in place on the wharf. The boards making up the deck were snapped where this section of deck had been split apart from its neighbor by the force of the waves. Footprints in sand on top of the deck boards indicated that multiple people had taken the opportunity to walk across the deck, which seemed like an obvious (but still surreal) thing to do in the circumstances. Some of the deck sections still had plumbing or electrical conduit mounted underneath, broken apart at the edges when the wharf collapsed.
One of the most common structural elements on the beach were the pilings driven into the mud under the water that supported the pier. Many of the pilings looked old and were covered in layers of barnacles and mussels where the water line used to be. (They did not seem to be enjoying their time out of the water.) Some of the pilings looked new and were covered in an anti-fouling plastic wrap to keep the barnacles and mussels and any other aquatic life away.
Some of the debris was mangled sections of deck and pilings and other structural elements, all jumbled together, held together by bent rusted bolts and screws and nails. These segments did not look entirely stable; I gawked at the piles of debris but stayed a careful distance away. In some places people were already salvaging the debris, starting with large t-shaped metal brackets mounted at the top of pilings connecting them to the sections of deck.
The first image I saw of the aftermath of the collapse of the wharf was looking down at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River where a large section of deck with a building that had been used as a restroom ended up. I immediately recognized the location and the angle of the picture, taken from the cliff above the beach overlooking Main Beach and the Beach Boardwalk. When I visited the beach I took my own version of the picture, showing the building itself and the end of the wharf, visible in my picture as the dark line on the horizon under the ominous cloud portending more waves and (potentially) more damage.
From the ground on Main Beach the restroom was obviously out-of-place, surrounded by people who were (like me) enjoying the spectacle of the collapsed wharf and observing the news first-hand.
I've seen many things on Seabright Beach and I've never seen anything quite like this.