SANTA CRUZ – The Santa Cruz Port Commission on Tuesday declared an emergency for the Santa Cruz Harbor following Saturday’s tsunami.
The eruption of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai, an underwater volcano roughly 40 miles north of the capital of the island nation of Tonga, caused tsunami advisories all throughout the Pacific. Waves from the blast slammed the American west coast with a strong undercurrent.
Videos shared on social media show high tide at Cowell Beach and flooding at the Santa Cruz Harbor. Santa Cruz Harbor staff shared the extent of the damage Tuesday.
“This emergency declaration will assist in streamlining the process in obtaining disaster recovery assistance with the state and Cal OES,” Port Director Holland Mac Laurie said.
The harbor estimates damages from Saturday’s tidal event to be as much as $6.5 million, according to Mac Laurie. For comparison, 2011’s tsunami event, caused by an 8.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan, caused $20 million in damage to the harbor.
Damages from Saturday’s event include utility infrastructure, damaged pilings and facilities such as restrooms and showers.
Waves from the tsunami flooded the restrooms and showers in the harbor with more than 3 feet of water, according to Port Commission Chairman Reed Geisreiter. Additionally, the waves knocked out the power throughout the harbor docks, a place where many people live aboard their moored boats.
Currently, the port commission is working to relocate those boats to powered slips while it continues to restore power to all docks, Mac Laurie said. So far, the commission has only heard from one live-aboard for that request, she added.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the port commission restored power to one dock that houses people that live on their boats and part of another, according to Harbormaster Blake Anderson. Three other docks harboring live aboard residents remain without power.
“A lot of live-aboards on (dock) J. That’s been a priority for us to get the power on back there,” Anderson said of hopefully restoring power to one of the docks by the end of the day Tuesday.
Crews need to continue to work toward drying the equipment before they can do the repairs necessary to restore power.
Long-term repairs of the power infrastructure were factored into damage estimates. Transformers in the harbor will likely have to be replaced since salt water was introduced to the equipment, which will deteriorate the quality of the transformers in the long run, Anderson noted.
Cost estimates also include embankment repairs on the eastside of the harbor and “unknown but expected” damage to the sea wall on the west side of the harbor.
Luckily, damage assessments found the harbor’s dock infrastructure is still structurally sound, Mac Laurie noted.
Additionally, the commission authorized Mac Laurie to enter into contracts to get necessary repairs done to harbor infrastructure. The commission originally planned to cap the contracts at $100,000 each, but elected to provide and additional $25,000 for each contract due to the anticipated costs of repairs, especially to utility infrastructure which is expected to exceed the original cap.
“We know we’re going to be running repair contracts that are over 100-grand so we might as well bump it up to 100 and a quarter,” Commissioner Stephen Reed said.
The effects of Saturday’s tsunami will also serve as important information as the city gears up to update its Local Hazard Mitigation and Climate Adaptation Plans, which assess the “impact and potential mitigations for combined natural hazards like tsunamis, flooding and sea level rise,” according to city Spokesperson Elizabeth Smith.
Planning updates are scheduled to take place before the end of 2022, she added.
Source: www.mercurynews.com