Anonymous
Scroll through the photos above and see below
By Amy Katz
Hundreds of visitors to Montecito’s Butterfly beach on January 22, 2023, a favorite seascape of Royals and Movie Stars, were confused, then awed, to see rocks strewn all over the walkways, sidewalks, street and sand, further altering a landscape already dramatically changed in recent weeks due to the atmospheric river/storm surge.
The culprit was a “King Tide”, which sent waves and rocks catapulting over the sea wall in a never-before-seen surge in front of the luxurious Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel and Coral Casino Club. Notably, much of the debris and shells that have been on the beach in recent days are gone: rocks are now being reigning feature.
King tides occur when the orbits and alignment of the sun, moon and Earth merges to produce the most gargantuan tidal effects of the year.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, “rubble on the road and pro-surf worthy waves predict the way our landscapes will be in the future: King tides preview how sea level rise will affect coastal places. As time goes by, the water level reached now during a king tide will be the water level reached at high tide on an average day.”
More regal tides were expected Monday and Tuesday, although not quite as high as Saturday’s stone thrower.
Mother Nature doing her thing. Every so often she lets loose. It’s great. I just wish we could stop spending ungodly amounts of taxpayer money to keep the creekside ultra wealthy Montecito homeowners in their poorly-located properties. See Noozhawk article:
https://www.noozhawk.com/santa-barbara-county-estimates-150-million-in-storm-damages-to-public-infrastructure/
Very unnatural to me to have to trap (debris basins, nets!), dig out, and truck all this earth that’s coming down from the mountains and lay it somewhere else. Talk about Carbon footprints. They’re even running street sweepers all around the Goleta beach entrance because of the mud footprints. Add insult to injury? Goleta Beach Park is closed to us until who knows when.
BASIC – great points. The existence of the crap they’re trucking to our beach is unnatural. Normally, it would have flowed downhill into the Cito beaches, were there no homes along the creeks. But…. don’t dare complain about it, lest you be “shamed” by non-local know it alls who condescendingly lecture us about how it’s “necessary” and actually “helpful” for our beach. I don’t know a single Goleta local who shares that sentiment.
Ouch. Does not look fun to run (or even walk on). Will there be enough sand coverage this summer or is this the new reality for that beach?
This just in: Montecito files lawsuit demanding return of storm sediment hastily dumped at less-affluent neighboring community beach; dredging and trucking to begin next week. /s
Goleta Beach is a city beach? Better tell the County of Santa Barbara.
1:40 – Nuke said “another city’s beach,” not “Goleta Beach is a Goleta City beach.” Despite being carved out of the city legal limits, it still is considered “our city’s” beach.
Hahaha! I was thinking the same thing. I still don’t know how it is legal for one city to dump its filthy storm sediment on another city’s beach. Check out Goleta beach — horrible!
“never-before-seen surge in front of the luxurious Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel”
Yes seen before. In 1983 I personally watched the ocean surge onto the Biltmore lawn and deposit a gigantic round buoy. A boat ended up on Channel Drive.
Yes Fernald! The surge back in 1983 was much worse. Perhaps the last 40 years of global warming have moderated tidal surges in addition to causing below normal temperatures this winter. Here is a link to some news clippings with photos of the damage done back in 83.
https://sbbucketbrigade.org/timeline/1983-winter-storms/
CHIP – please try to remember that “warming” isn’t the only sign of climate change. Weather extremes can be high or low temp. Just because it’s raining or cold doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening.
1:12 is impervious to any facts contradicting his politically dictated world view.
I think the photos speak for themselves. Compare the damage in the last couple of photos in the link I posted showing the damage along channel drive in 1983 to the photos in this article from a couple days ago. The boulders, broken down biltmore sign and uprooted eucalyptus were a sight to behold.
https://sbbucketbrigade.org/timeline/1983-winter-storms/
“Just because it’s raining or cold doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening.” —— Just because it’s (weather event) or (temperature) doesn’t mean anthropogenic climate change is the reason it’s (weather event) or (temperature).
VOICE – I never said it did. There’s a plethora of scientific proof about anthropogenic climate change. We’re not devolving this comment thread into another grandstand for you to deny science.