From flooded neighborhoods and roads to disappearing beaches and crumbling bluffs, Orange County faces a range of drastic losses as a result of rising sea levels, according to a presentation to the state Coastal Commission on Friday.

Early signs of those effects are already seen everywhere, from Seal Beach and Huntington Beach in the north through Doheny Beach and Capistrano Beach in the south.

“Sea-level rise is going to change the coast in quite significant ways,” Sean Hecht told the commission at its meeting in Newport Beach’s city council chambers. Hecht is co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law.

Mary Matella, an environmental scientist with the commission, outlined Orange County damages that would result from 6 feet of sea-level rise: 11 square miles of land and 20 miles of roads would be underwater, affecting 50,000 residents.

And that’s without storm surges, which would broaden the impacts.

However, as Hecht noted — and as was repeatedly emphasized at the 2019 California Coastal Law Conference in Huntington Beach on Monday — there’s no scientific consensus on how fast the ocean is rising. The Coastal Commission has often used an estimate of 6.6 feet by 2100 for planning purposes, but notes there’s only a 0.5% chance of that happening. It has put a 2-foot rise by then at 58%, and a 1-foot increase at 92%.

“Sea levels are rising, and how fast is uncertain,” commission coastal engineer Lesley Ewing said at the conference. While skeptics point to the low odds of a 6.6-foot rise, others — including Aquarium of the Pacific CEO Jerry Schubel — say current estimates are low and are steadily being modified upward.

‘Sneak peek’

Evidence of rising seas isn’t hard to come by. Seal Beach and Sunset Beach are already prone to flooding during storms and king tides, and sea walls recently were elevated on Balboa Island to keep out the rising ocean. This past winter, high surf and tides swept chunks of Capistrano Beach and Doheny Beach into the water.

“Nature is giving us a sneak peek at what lies ahead,” commission Executive Director Jack Ainsworth said at Monday’s conference. “King tides will become the norm. … We must deal with this with a sense of urgency.”

At Friday’s commission meeting, Matella offered examples of future damage along the Orange County’s coast:

In Seal Beach, 3-foot sea-level rise would cause permanent flooding in some neighborhoods.

In Huntington Beach, 1-foot or less of sea-level rise would subject the Huntington Harbour area to flooding.

In Laguna Beach, high tides already swallow up beaches in some coves.

In San Clemente, a 4.9-foot rise would threaten the beachfront railroad.

All of Orange County’s coastal cities are developing or updating vulnerability assessments and adaptation plans, usually with the help of state grants. So far, the commission has doled out $6.8 million in grants to 38 coastal jurisdictions.

Future plans

Coastal armoring — such as sea walls and boulders — is the commission’s least preferred option and generally ruled out for new construction. Managed retreat — moving manmade uses inland to allow the ocean to expand landward — is the commission’s preferred alternative, though it also often embraces the creation and fortification of dunes and marshes.

Hecht spent much of his Friday presentation detailing the history and challenges of insuring homes at risk of flooding. Perhaps most striking was his explanation that the maximum coverage available for flood damage is $250,000.

“It will be no surprise to anyone that that does not cover the value of properties on California’s coast,” he noted.

But a bigger problem may be that many coastal homeowners don’t have even that much coverage, something Hecht wrote off to human nature.

“We tend, as people, to discount the likelihood of major events like this in the future,” he said.