California's piers might not be resilient enough to endure the impacts of climate change.
During a series of winter storms that battered California’s coast with strong rip currents and towering waves, part of the Santa Cruz Wharf collapsed on Monday, sending two contractors and a city employee into the water. The wharf is one of several public piers and wharves in the state currently undergoing structural integrity upgrades.
Although California's coastal structures have occasionally succumbed to the ocean's force over the years—such as the Santa Monica Pier, which once partially collapsed while the mayor was present—these aging infrastructures now face increasingly severe and unpredictable storms. Compounding the challenge are costly and often delayed upgrade projects.
"We have exposed infrastructure across the entire California coast, and it’s going to be ... stressed by the impacts of climate change, whether it’s changes in storm patterns, frequency and magnitude, or sea level rise," said Patrick Barnard, research director for the Climate Impacts and Coastal Processes Team at the U.S. Geological Survey. Over the past two years, at least 10 of the state's public piers were closed for part or all of 2024 due to structural damage from winter storms. Additionally, at least five more are undergoing long-term upgrades to address similar issues.
Eighteen piers in California were either closed for part of 2024 or remain damaged.
In 2018, a structural analysis of San Diego’s Ocean Beach Pier concluded that replacing the pier was the best solution to address ongoing costly repairs and rising sea levels. In late 2023, powerful winter storms severely damaged the pier, prompting the city to abandon plans for further repairs while working on its replacement. Instead, the pier will remain closed until the city completes the $8 million-plus, multiyear replacement project.
Meanwhile, other California piers have faced similar challenges. Early 2023 storms damaged the Ventura Pier and Santa Cruz County’s Capitola Wharf, both of which reopened earlier this year. Restoration costs exceeded $3 million for Ventura and $8 million for Capitola.
In Santa Cruz, proposals to update the Santa Cruz Wharf date back to 2014, marking the pier’s centennial. Although an initial engineering report deemed the wharf “generally in good and serviceable condition,” a secondary assessment recommended additional structural supports to protect it from extreme weather. However, delays ensued when a coalition opposed the city’s approved plan in 2020, filing a lawsuit over concerns that recreational activities could harm the environment.
As litigation and revisions to the environmental impact report dragged on, two major storms in December 2023 and February 2024—part of the same system that damaged the Ocean Beach Pier—inflicted substantial harm on the wharf. Before long-term improvements like widening the pier and adding boat landings could begin, the city authorized $3.5 million in repairs to address the damage. These repairs, which included replacing 60 support piles, began in the fall of 2024.
Yet, another wave of winter storms in December brought 40-foot waves that battered the coast, underscoring the increasing destructiveness of California’s storm patterns.
Winter storms have long threatened California’s piers, but scientists warn they are becoming more severe. Studies indicate that rising air and water temperatures are altering storm patterns globally, including along California’s coast. An intensifying low-pressure system off Alaska is now more likely to generate powerful storms and energetic waves along the West Coast. Climate change has also increased storm variability, exposing piers once sheltered from prevailing northwestward storms to waves from all directions.
“In recent Santa Cruz storms, we’ve seen events coming more from the south or west,” said researcher Patrick Barnard. “Even a shift of five or 10 degrees can make a significant difference for piers built in traditionally sheltered areas.”
For California’s aging piers, this means frequent structural assessments and costly repairs. For instance, the Santa Monica Pier underwent two assessments since 2000, with the most recent in 2019 costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Large-scale repairs often take years and cost millions, and delays in maintenance can lead to irreversible damage.
In early 2023, half of the Seacliff State Beach Pier near Santa Cruz collapsed into the ocean during a storm. Based on a structural engineering report, the state decided to remove the pier entirely, just shy of its 100th anniversary.
Many of California’s piers and wharves are now over a century old. Initially built in the 1800s as private structures for shipping minerals and metals, these piers evolved into ambitious public projects by the early 20th century. Today, they stand as icons of California’s coast, increasingly vulnerable to the mounting impacts of climate change.
