Along the central coast, piers and beaches are closed because dangerous conditions have raised concerns about the coastline.
Waves rushed onto the end of Pier Avenue Saturday afternoon as high tide rolled in. KSBY’s Meteorologist Jim Castillo forecasted 18- to 25-foot waves on Saturday. As a precaution, the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area was closed.
Janet and Danny George were excited to spend one of their last days of vacation on the beach. They quickly found out a beach day wasn’t in the cards.
“We're all packed up, ready to go on the beach," Janet said. "We got here and it's closed.”
“I was so surprised at that," Danny said. "The waves are so enormous out here too. The beach is totally wiped out. There's no beach at all.”
Jon O’Brien with California State Parks said it was a difficult but necessary decision to close the beach for the day.
“Clearly, we don't want to close unless we really need to, because we want people to be able to come out and enjoy the beach," O'Brien said. "That being said, given the conditions today, working with public safety, we determined that it would be dangerous to have people on the beach today.”
The Georges have been coming to Oceano twice a year for the last fifteen years. In those almost 30 weeklong trips, they said this is the first time they've seen the beach shut down.
“Even down in San Diego, on our beaches and stuff, we go all the time down there; I've never seen this kind of wave action and the big waves like this," Danny said.
They joined dozens of other onlookers who came to the dunes just to see the unusual waves. O'Brien said this happened back in 2023, and State Parks knew to take extra precautions this time around.
“Having seen conditions like this in the past, we knew it could be a public safety hazard to see people on the beach," O'Brien said. "So we decided to close it and then we're doing what we can to try and protect the infrastructure.”
O’Brien said State Parks added berms between the Pier Avenue entrance to keep the waves from eroding the base of the road, as they did in 2023.
Camping at the dunes has been canceled until November 16th, but O’Brien says the beach will likely reopen on Sunday. The latest updates for the dunes can be found on their website.
