Newport Beach's coastline faces a winter of elevated flooding and erosion risk after Hurricane Marie stripped sand from beaches, exposed buried debris at the Wedge and left lifeguards logging record rescues.

Three neighboring Orange County cities have now declared local emergencies over coastal damage. The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center has put the probability of a "very strong" El Niño at 90%, and coastal engineers have warned that Newport Beach is among the low-lying communities most exposed.

San Clemente became the latest city to act. Its City Council voted unanimously on Sept. 15 to declare a local emergency and authorize up to $1 million for emergency sand placement and berm construction, Voice of OC reported. The vote followed similar declarations by Laguna Beach and Dana Point, where nine homes were red-tagged and seven yellow-tagged.

"The unique thing about this is that we can see the emergency coming … We as a city have to do everything now so we aren't on the backend of this emergency later," San Clemente Councilmember Mark Enmeier said at the Sept. 15 meeting.

Newport Beach already hit hard

Newport Beach felt Marie's force over Labor Day weekend. Lifeguards recorded 213 rescues during the holiday swell, according to Marine Safety Chief Brian O'Rourke. The city's lifeguards have logged more than 5,000 rescues since January, well above the roughly 3,000 typical in a full year, the Orange County Register reported.

O'Rourke said the beach is experiencing more erosion than he has seen in nearly 40 years as a lifeguard.

At the Wedge, massive sections of sand were ripped away, exposing rocks, wires, asphalt, a pipe and pieces of an old pier buried for decades, FOX 11 reported. Lifeguards used a chainsaw to cut down sharp wooden planks shooting up from the sand. Sections of the beach were roped off. As of Sept. 9, city officials had not released a plan to replace the lost sand, according to FOX 11.

The city did rush to build berms on both sides of Balboa Pier before Marie hit, using roughly 200,000 cubic yards of sand over four days, according to Patch. A small sewer line near Corona del Mar State Beach also broke on Sept. 9 during high surf. Crews repaired it and posted advisory signs.

Winter outlook

A separate NOAA forecast pegged the chance of a "historic event" exceeding any El Niño since 1950 at 69%, Patch reported in August.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist Mark Merrifield said in August that California could see "likely the highest sea levels ever recorded on the California coast" tied to this event. Elevated sea levels are expected to peak around November and December, with broader storm impacts running from December through March.

Jeremy Smith, a coastal engineer with the California Coastal Commission, specifically named Newport Beach among low-lying beachfront areas at risk. High tides could send waves over the beach and into streets, overwhelming storm drains, Smith told the Los Angeles Times in August. The highest king tides of the season are expected on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Jan. 22, 2027.

As we reported Sept. 15, a Kelvin wave moving north along Mexico's coast could raise Orange County sea levels by 6 to 12 inches as early as October, and that elevated water could linger for months.

Regional push for state help

Orange County's Emergency Operations Center activated to a low level on Sept. 11 after the Dana Point and Laguna Beach declarations, the County of Orange said on X. On Sept. 17, state Sen. Tony Strickland said on X that he joined a bipartisan group of legislators requesting the Governor declare a state of emergency for Orange County's coastal regions.

Newport Beach Council member Erik Weigand told KTLA in August that the city had identified sand to move to the Wedge area but that "getting it there is the real tricky part." No formal city plan for winter preparedness has been announced.

Residents in low-lying areas including Balboa Island, the Peninsula and Newport Island can monitor conditions through the city's emergency notification system.