Waves From Marie Swallow Long Beach Streets as Berms Wash Away

Marie coastal flooding in Southern California turned an ordinary Labor Day Sunday into a scramble, as enormous surf driven by the offshore system pushed seawater over protective berms and into residential streets. Homeowners in Long Beach spent the afternoon and evening trying to keep the ocean out of their garages.

The system weakened from a hurricane to a tropical cyclone on Sunday night. It never came close to shore. That distance made almost no difference to the communities in its swell path.

The Peninsula Took the Worst of It

In Long Beach, the water arrived quickly and did not let up.

Waves rolled over the berms built along the shoreline and spilled onto adjacent streets. Sand blocked storm drains, so what came in had nowhere to go. Standing water pooled and rose.

At one stage, lifeguards cleared people off the boardwalk entirely because the surf had grown too dangerous to be near.

Residents Describe the Afternoon

Near 67th Place and Ocean Boulevard, neighbours were running a pump to push standing water toward the sewer system.

Jen, who has lived on the peninsula for 13 years, said conditions had been intense throughout the day, with swells building sharply from around 2 p.m. The drains, she said, were either blocked or simply not functioning. Once they failed, water overflowed onto her block and several others, and eventually into houses.

She noted that flooding is not a new experience there. Sunday, however, went beyond what anyone had prepared for.

An ABC7 crew watched residents open garage doors to find several inches of water inside, then begin sweeping it back out.

Evelina Mardirossian described a difficult emotion: feeling violated while knowing there was no one to blame, because the cause was nature rather than a person. She said she tells her grandchildren she is sad about what humans have created. Her stretch of the peninsula, she said, is the lowest point — something city officials have confirmed after inspecting it.

The Damage Left Behind

Some households had set out sandbags in advance. It helped in places, but not everywhere.

As the water finally receded, it left sand and sludge coating driveways and interiors. Footage showed boardwalk timber splintered by the force of the impacts. The eight-foot berms constructed along the shore were gone entirely.

Cole Hill, a Long Beach resident, described conditions inside affected properties: power problems causing people to receive shocks, forcing crews to cut electricity; floor tiles pulled up; furniture displaced; electronics ruined.

Ashley Brown described the physical danger of being anywhere near the water. Every wave, she said, throws debris at people — including boards torn from the boardwalk and flung ten feet into the air.

The City Response

Long Beach crews planned to begin rebuilding the compromised berms on Monday morning.

Assistant Chief Jake Heflin of the Long Beach Fire Department said additional resources had been ordered, including portable pumps brought in specifically to clear standing water.

Impacts Up and Down the Coast

The flooding was not confined to Long Beach.

Point Mugu, near Malibu. Video showed waves breaking over the barrier and washing across Pacific Coast Highway, drenching passing vehicles.

Malibu beaches. Several closed outright, driven by a combination of flooding and lightning risk.

Seal Beach. Aerial footage captured cleanup crews working into Sunday night after waves breached the barriers, carving a channel of water between the ocean berms and the homes behind them.

It Wasn’t Only the Ocean

Southern California dealt with more than surf on Sunday. Widespread rain produced dozens of crashes on slick roads. Trees came down. Thousands lost power, including in Glendale.

The combination meant emergency services were stretched across inland and coastal incidents at the same time.

Why an Offshore Storm Causes This

The disconnect between a distant system and severe local flooding confuses people every time it happens.

Large storms generate swell that travels enormous distances across open ocean, arriving at the coast long after and far from where it formed. When that swell coincides with high tide, the two combine. Water levels are already elevated, and the waves ride on top.

Berms are built to absorb exactly this, but they have limits. Once overtopped, they stop functioning and can be scoured away in a single tide cycle — which is what happened here.

Blocked storm drains compound it. Sand carried inland by the first waves seals the outlets, so subsequent water simply accumulates.

The Advisory Is Still Active

Officials warned that the surf remains dangerous and is likely to stay that way for several days. Beachgoers were urged to keep away from the water through the rest of the holiday weekend.

A High Surf Advisory covering the coast runs through 11 p.m. Tuesday.

For residents on the Long Beach peninsula, the immediate work is drying out interiors, clearing sand, and assessing what was ruined. The longer question — whether the berms can hold the next time a system parks itself offshore — is one they have now asked several times.