The Peninsula is the narrow strip of Long Beach between the open ocean and Alamitos Bay, with the boardwalk and a wooden bulkhead between the houses and the beach. Hurricane Marie's swell on September 8 took up to 10 feet of sand depth and breached the seawall and boardwalk; about 20 homes were evacuated. Tropical Storm Rachel came through the bulkhead on October 9: nine buildings at 13 addresses red-tagged on Seaside Walk, 64th to 66th Place evacuated. The City is trucking in sand and has fast-tracked an $11.4 million dredge. That rebuilds the beach. It does not dry a house.
The Peninsula is sand, a few feet above the sea, with water on both sides. The groundwater under every lot rises and falls with the tide, ocean side and bay side alike, and this autumn the sea is running higher under every tide. Garages, ground-floor slabs and lower rooms get wet from below with no wave in sight.
Where the bulkhead failed, the swell reached the houses directly. Seawater in drywall, insulation and framing has to be opened and dried within days; the salt stays in whatever is left in place and keeps drawing moisture.
Ten feet of beach gone in front of a house means sand moving under it too. A slab or a footing that has lost its bearing shows as cracks, settlement and doors that bind. The survey finds it before the next swell does.
Not on the sand? The same higher sea lifts the water table under low-lying streets blocks inland, so a slab can take water from below with no wave in sight. How the groundwater behind the beachfront works →
The City's sand program, 50,000 to 100,000 cubic yards trucked onto the Peninsula and a dredge of about 415,000 cubic yards, is public work on public timelines. It is the buffer, and it is the first thing the next swell takes. Our part is the house: documentation, drying, drainage, moisture under the slab and mold, coordinated with the City's building official on tagged addresses.
About 20 homes evacuated. The wooden seawall and boardwalk breached; up to 10 feet of sand depth gone.
Long Beach Post · LAistRachel's swell broke through the boardwalk bulkhead that Hurricane Marie had stripped of sand. Nine buildings, 13 addresses, red-tagged on Seaside Walk; 64th to 66th Place evacuated. The City fast-tracks 50,000 to 100,000 cubic yards of trucked sand and an $11.4 million dredge of about 415,000 cubic yards.
Long Beach Post, Oct 9 · Long Beach Post, Oct 11The whole coast, dated and sourced →
In this order. Documenting and drying happen the same day; documenting comes first.
If you smell gas, get out and call the gas company from outside. Switch off power to circuits that are wet. Do not enter a red-tagged house; a yellow tag says what you may do.
Close the valve if it is a pipe. If it is the sea or the ground, there is nothing to close; move what you can above the water line and leave the rest in place for the photographs.
Every room, the water line on the walls, the floor, the garage, the contents, the outside of the house and the beach or street. Phone timestamps are fine. Nothing gets dried, moved or thrown out before it is on record.
A pin meter on walls and floors, room by room, written down with the time. If you do not have one, we bring ours; the readings date the damage.
Call your insurer the same day, say you are limiting the damage, and send the photographs. Keep the City's tag notice if there is one. Wave and flood damage is often a flood-policy question; the record matters either way.
Extraction, air movers and dehumidifiers the same day. Wet drywall and insulation that took seawater come out; the salt stays in whatever is left. Do not tear out beyond what has been photographed.
A damp floor with no rain, a salt crust on concrete, doors that bind and new cracks mean the water is under the slab. That is a moisture survey, not a guess, and it is where we start.
Go in only when the City says you may, and photograph and video everything before anything is moved, dried or thrown out: the water line on the walls, every wet floor, the garage, the contents. Take moisture readings or have us take them. Then drying starts the same day. Our emergency dry-out crew does both in one visit and leaves you with a dated record.
It fixes the beach. The seawater that reached the slab, the walls and the framing has already done its work, and the groundwater under the Peninsula will keep following the tide whatever the beach looks like. The house needs its own answer: a moisture survey, drainage and a sump if the slab is taking water from below, and removal of what cannot be dried.
Document from outside and, with the building official's permission, inside; write the cause-of-loss report your adjuster and attorney will need; and plan the interior repair so it starts the day the tag allows. The bulkhead and the beach are the City's and the coastal engineer's; the inside of the house is ours.
One licensed contractor answers, finds the source, makes the repair and writes the report. Not a call center that passes your job to whoever is nearby.
No photograph of the home leaves the file without written consent. We work through the estate manager, the architect or the family office when that is how the house is run.
Other coasts: Capistrano Beach · Newport Beach · Malibu · home
L3 Energy Construction LLC, CSLB #1149191, Southern California coast, Malibu to La Jolla. Water-intrusion practice since 1999 as Hydrotech Construction, including construction-defect expert witness work. Figures in the log are as reported by the linked sources; the reading of what they mean inside a house is ours. Illustrative, not a survey of any property.