Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson confirmed that at least eight buildings, representing 13 addresses, were red-tagged as unsafe to enter after Tropical Storm Rachel slammed the city’s Alamitos Peninsula, while another building received a yellow tag allowing residents limited access to retrieve their belongings.
Natalie Cabrera, 59, who had lived on the peninsula for just a year and a half, watched her rented beachfront bungalow sustain water damage to its foundation as relentless waves sent seawater rushing underneath the structure.
“I don’t want to leave. At all. Ever. This was my dream,” Cabrera said.
She described the destruction in visceral terms. “The floor is squishy. Because the ocean just kept hitting and hitting my home, and the water went underneath,” she said. “Water didn’t come through my front door. It came up from the ground.”
Cabrera said neighbors who had lived in the area for decades had never witnessed anything comparable. “My other neighbor’s been here 30 years, and never, ever have they seen this. So I’m a newbie to the neighborhood. And I’m just devastated to have to leave,” she said.
She planned to relocate to Ontario, where her son and daughter-in-law have a home. “That’s where I grew up. So I guess I’m just going to have to go back,” she said.
Despite her losses, Cabrera expressed gratitude that her family and neighbors survived, and she recalled how strangers rushed to aid her property. “Everybody just came together, total strangers. There was a young kid from USC, fishing. He saw the devastation of the waves just rushing through my front door, and he came,” she said. “As fast as the water came, they’re shoveling the sand out.”
Robert Wells, 80, whose family has owned a summer home on the peninsula since 1962, said he had never witnessed such severe destruction. “It’s never happened like this before,” he said. “Yesterday, and this morning, the water came right over here. And just took everything out.”
Wells blamed the city’s protective measures, arguing that a sand berm constructed to hold back the ocean worsened the damage. “There are more greater chances than not that if they hadn’t put that berm there, that the damage would be minor. And now the damage is major,” he said. “If they had done nothing, it would have been better. They wouldn’t have all this damage.”
He also claimed residents were preparing legal action against the city. “There is a class action lawsuit forming against the city of Long Beach,” he said.
John Fernando, who has lived on the peninsula for more than a decade, evacuated as the tide rose. “I left when the high tide started building up around 9am this morning,” he said.
He described how powerful waves stripped away sand layers, exposing previously buried structures. “No one’s ever seen the rocks and the extra stakes in the sand until now when the ocean just ripped it out,” he said.
Fernando said residents worked continuously to protect homes and assist neighbors. “We’re all in this together. We’ve all been protecting our own properties. And then when we could provide support, we’d help each other out at the same time. This is definitely like 100% a group effort,” he said.
But he feared worse was coming. “There’s tomorrow, there’s the king tide, so this is just the beginning, it’s not over,” he said.
The storm’s destruction concentrated along Seaside Walk, where waves breached the protective bulkhead, damaged the historic century-old boardwalk and left beachfront properties vulnerable to further erosion. Video showed a large crack running from foundation to roof of one waterfront home, while other footage captured waves crashing directly into shoreline structures.
Dave Uff, who has lived in the neighborhood for 12 years, said his home on 63rd Place survived after he surrounded it with sandbags, though several neighbors were less fortunate. “On Seaside Walk, some of the fronts of the homes have been destroyed. On 63rd Place, a lot of water and sand intrusion, that’s going to be hard to mitigate,” he said.
“This is the worst anybody’s ever seen it. The people that have been here for 60 years say this is the worst they’ve seen it,” Uff added.
Despite the losses, he said residents remained committed to mutual aid. “We’re a very tight community here, and what affects one affects all. And some of our neighbors have lost their homes. We’re all hurting for them. We’re all helping out,” he said. “We’re heartbroken, but we’re steadfast, and we’re doing what we can to keep things normal, as normal as possible, and waiting to rebuild.”
By Saturday evening, parts of the damaged boardwalk had become inaccessible, with officials posting no-trespassing signs as emergency crews scrambled to reinforce the coastline. Mandatory evacuation orders covered residents along Seaside Walk between 64th and 66th places, scheduled to remain until noon Tuesday subject to changing conditions. The city restricted vehicle access to peninsula residents only, distributed 7,600 sandbags bringing the three-storm total to approximately 15,000, and deployed heavy equipment and massive sandbags to reinforce damaged seawall sections.
The latest storm followed Hurricane Marie over Labor Day weekend and Hurricane Polo in subsequent weeks, which had already battered Southern California’s coastline.
In Newport Beach, officials declared a local emergency Friday after coastal flooding inundated Balboa Peninsula streets, prompting protective sand berm construction and pump deployment. The city temporarily closed beaches and shut down the Newport Pier, Balboa Pier and the Wedge. Orange County officials coordinated distribution of tens of thousands of sandbags while public works crews used bulldozers to reinforce vulnerable shoreline stretches.
Post-tropical Storm Rachel made landfall in northern Baja California, north of Ensenada, before moving inland with heavy rain and flash-flood concerns for the Southwest.
Crews will continue reinforcing damaged sections of the Long Beach seawall as officials monitor conditions ahead of expected king tides.