Posted on March 24, 2016
High surf and rain in the forecast have most boats docked in the Santa Cruz Harbor. A series of recent storms have caused trouble for the harbor because of higher wave energy.
“It’s just a tough location, and with a winter like this it’s even worse because we’ve had more cumulative wave energy than any winter in the last 30 years. So all that stirring up the sand, moving it down the coast, and right into the entrance,” said Gary Griggs, the Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at UCSC.
Gary Griggs has been studying the Santa Cruz coastline for decades. He said during the winter, about 300,000 cubic yards of sand move south along the coast and end up piling into the Santa Cruz Harbor. And dredging is the solution to clearing that sand and sediment.
The process of dredging is similar to the average vacuum cleaner. The nozzle agitates the sand at the bottom of the water and sucks it back up, depositing it further down along the coast.
With swells upwards of 15 feet expected into Wednesday, things along the harbor will get worse before it can get better.
“They’re doing pretty good but it’s a tough job out there, and you know they can only dredge so much with this machine,” said Griggs.
The Santa Cruz Harbor is not only a trouble-spot for dredging, it is in a vulnerable spot for tsunamis. The Emergency Service Center in Santa Cruz County is taking Tsunami Awareness Week seriously, informing residents and tourists of the potential disasters.
“It’s a fine line between educating people about what kind of potential disasters could exist in a community, and scaring people from coming to those areas,” said Rosemary Anderson, Emergency Services Manager with Santa Cruz County.
In addition to workshops, Anderson said they’re blasting the message out on social media.
“So they have a plan in place, they’ve had the conversations with their families, loved ones, and neighbors about what they would do in any kind of natural disaster,” said Anderson.
Tsunami evacuation maps are expected to be made available to the public within a month.
