Tsunami surge causes turbulence at Santa Cruz Harbor

SANTA CRUZ — Under the threat of a potential tsunami hitting the Monterey Bay following a powerful 8.8 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Russia Tuesday evening, local jurisdictions and agencies closed beaches and coastal parks; and the staff at the Santa Cruz Harbor braced themselves for another natural disaster.

“We are getting more accustomed to these types of events as they increase in frequency,” said Santa Cruz Port Director Holland MacLaurie. “We have our emergency response pretty dialed in when it comes to tsunamis.”

MacLaurie mentioned that this event differed from other recent natural disasters as the tsunami was estimated to hit the Pacific Coast and the Harbor in the middle of the night.

“We tried to prep as much as we could while there was still daylight,” said MacLaurie. “We had the power shut off, the water shut off, the fuel dock shut off and notified all of our liveaboards, and went boat to boat for the people we couldn’t contact.”

Because the wave arrival was estimated to hit after midnight, the harbor’s residents were advised to find another place to sleep for the night. Ultimately, surge activity from the tsunami damaged one of the harbor’s pilings near the pier and the cross-channel dredge pipe near the harbor mouth, but didn’t cause millions in damage like the 2011 and 2022 tsunamis.

“We were pleasantly surprised that we didn’t take quite as big of a hit as we did in 2011 and 2022,” said MacLaurie. “Around 1 o’clock we started observing some of that surge activity. At that point, we were just monitoring — making sure that things weren’t breaking and boats weren’t busting loose. We were really fortunate with this event that while there was activity out there, it wasn’t to the point where there was significant damage.”

In an abundance of caution, the city of Santa Cruz cancelled its Junior Guards program Wednesday morning and the Capitola Wharf was temporarily closed. However, the National Tsunami Warning Center lifted the tsunami warning advisory for coastal Santa Cruz County before noon, and local beaches and parks reopened.

Just after noon at the Santa Cruz Harbor, all docks were open and accessible, and power and water was restored. MacLaurie said that she and the Harbor team are still closely monitoring ocean conditions despite the lifting of the tsunami advisory, but they are no longer holding their breath.

“We’re breathing a big sigh of relief,” said MacLaurie. “We haven’t been able to catch a break with the tsunamis and winter storms and so we were absolutely expecting the worst and preparing for the worst, and we caught a break.”

Outside of the Santa Cruz Harbor offices, the Sentinel caught up with Rep. Jimmy Panetta, who was checking in with the port director about the event. Panetta said when he heard about the earthquake and subsequent tsunami advisory, he immediately thought about the worst-case scenarios — the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami and the winter storms in recent years — and how he and the federal government can help.

“Fortunately, the surge wasn’t as aggressive as we’ve seen,” said Panetta. “We are lucky in that sense, but clearly we have a facility here that is unfortunately vulnerable to these types of storm surges and events.”

On the dock overlooking the mouth of the harbor, Santa Cruz County resident Elaine Rohlfes was taking a break from running errands, enjoying the sun and sea. She said she was initially shocked to hear about the 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Russia Tuesday evening and the potential of a tsunami hitting the West Coast.

“It was freaky,” said Rohlfes. “I was here in 1989 when we had our earthquake here and now that is a memory. Although this one happened near Russia, which is a little ways away, while the ’89 earthquake was here in Aptos. I did think about the people here in the harbor. Thankfully, the damage was minimal.”

Santa Cruz resident Jim Enos, who lives near the Santa Cruz Harbor and often takes walks there, said that he wasn’t personally worried about the tsunami’s effect on his home, since he lives about 100 feet from the water. Still, he and his wife kept themselves informed about the situation. He was grateful that it wasn’t a devastating event like others in recent memory.

“I live here so I walk through the harbor and they have just been hammered lately,” said Enos. “It’s good to see that they didn’t get hammered by this and everything’s normal. I’m just happy that the folks down here didn’t have to go through anything again.”