Catalina Takes a Beating : Islanders Worry About Tourism, Isolation as Storms’ Toll Rises

The brutal storms that lashed the Southland this month were rough enough on the coastal communities, but 22 miles at sea, Santa Catalina Island and its 3,000 winter residents received what is said to be one of the worst beatings since the 1930s.

And now, with new storms expected, folks on the island worry about a sagging tourist trade, ferry boats that remain stuck in their berths on the mainland, washed-out roads and the prospect of more flooding and damage to tourist sites.

When the rain hit with a vengeance two weeks ago, scores of residents, the high school basketball team and the children at a nursery school had to be evacuated as muddy water raced through the streets of Avalon. A flash flood down Falls Canyon destroyed a dozen warehouses and workshops, sending a torrent of stored paddle boats, motorized water skis and other assorted flotsam spewing across the golf course, which remains coated in mud and was closed to the public until Friday.

“Our problems started with the rain on Jan. 4, and it just kept right on going,” said Avalon City Councilman Tim Winslow.

The barge that brings food and other supplies from the mainland was kept at dockside for five days because of high seas, leaving store shelves on the island bare of bread, milk and other perishables.

“Everybody (on the mainland) just assumes we’re OK,” said Sherri Walker, editor of the Catalina Islander. “We weren’t.”

Two weeks after the worst of the storms hit, virtually all of the interior roads on the island remain closed because of rock and mud slides. At least one stretch of road disappeared entirely, leaving only a 30-foot cliff where buses once carried thousands of tourists. The road to the airport is open for emergency traffic only and roads to minor harbors are only accessible by four-wheel-drive vehicles, officials said.

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In the tiny, one-mile-square town of Avalon, all the shops and restaurants have reopened and residents are back in their homes.

But in the island’s interior, where bus tours were a regular sight, some of the roads could be out of commission for up to a year. On others, the damage is so great that they will never be rebuilt, said Chuck Olson, president of the Catalina Island Conservancy, which operates 86% of the island as a nature preserve.

“This was the worst I’ve seen in the 45 years I’ve lived here,” said Pastor Lopez, director of public works for Avalon. And old-timers he has spoken with say you have to go back to a historic storm in 1936 to have seen anything worse.

The island’s one reservoir is filled to capacity and was overflowing during the recent storms. In all, Catalina has received 10.11 inches of rain this month, about four times the normal amount, according to WeatherData, which provides weather forecasting services to The Times.

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Catalina’s storm problems are being compounded by mainland weather mishaps.

Catalina Cruises, one of only three companies that ferry passengers to the island, has canceled service until further notice because its Long Beach dock has been cut off from the sea by silt that accumulated in last week’s storms. The city of Long Beach has awarded a $2.5 million contract to have the area dredged, but officials of R.B. & Associates Marine Co., which is doing the work, said it could take up to a month.

A second company, Catalina Express, has stopped its Long Beach-to-Catalina service because of danger from debris in the harbor, but is running additional boats out of its second dock in San Pedro.

Still, on one sunny afternoon this week, life appeared to be getting back to normal. The sky was cloudless, the harbor waters a deep blue. A few sloops bobbed at their moorings. The harbor master reported slight winds and nothing out of the ordinary.

But there were lingering signs of the storms.

Merchants and city officials continued to wash mud from the sidewalk on oceanfront Crescent Avenue. Workmen moved boxes out of flooded offices at City Hall and into the old City Council chambers for temporary storage. You could hear power tools at work on roofs throughout the town, patching them in anticipation of the next storm.

To a tourist, the Avalon harbor water looked blue and pretty. But trips on the famed glass-bottom boats in the harbor were canceled because of hazy water conditions caused by storm runoff.

Against this backdrop, officials and merchants said they are just as concerned with the looming economic clouds as they are with the kind that carry rain.

January is always the slowest month of the year for tourism, and this year the series of storms, the passenger ferries’ cutbacks and the closure of the inland tourist sites is keeping visitors away in droves.

“Any rain puts a damper on visitors,” said Wayne Griffin, executive director of the island’s Chamber of Commerce.

The island, said Councilman Winslow, who operates the local Coors and Pepsi distributorship, needs “every visitor we can get to make a living, what with the recession and everything.”

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Making things worse, one of the two cruise ships that made regular stops at Catalina was sold last month and will no longer be docking at the island port.

Dave Herlihy, co-owner of the Catalina Cantina, said business was two to three times better last year at this time. “But last year, the weather was a lot better,” he said. “With the boats not running, it’s really having an effect on everybody’s business.”

Herlihy paused to look up and down the oceanfront walk and at the handful of afternoon strollers. “They all look pretty familiar to me,” he said, indicating that they were all locals.

One of the busiest days at Herlihy’s cantina this month was Jan. 10, when the biggest of the storms hit and scores of island residents pitched in to help with sandbagging and other relief efforts. Herlihy opened the restaurant and fed the police, firefighters and volunteer workers for free. “Everybody came back to work. They didn’t even punch in,” Herlihy said about his employees.

One business that was booming, at least temporarily, was the Island Express Helicopter Service. In the aftermath of the big storms, when the barge and passenger ships could not chance a channel crossing because of high seas, the helicopter kept flying, ferrying passengers and supplies in a record number of flights, according to Patti Moore, whose family owns the company.

Of course, not all island residents minded the rain. Catalina’s buffalo herd survived without any apparent problems. “They’re made for rain,” said Rose Ellen, vice president of the conservancy.

And as the old bromide goes, there is a bright side even to cloudy days.

Olson of the conservancy said that because of the extra rain, this spring should be one of the most spectacular in recent memory. “The hills will be flowered and green like never before. The quail population will be huge,” Olson said.

The roads may be out, but that shouldn’t affect hikers and campers and mountain bikers who want to enjoy the outdoors, Olson said. “It should be a great year ecologically because of the rain,” he said. “It’ll be fantastic.”

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Battered Island

Santa Catalina has taken a beating in this month’s storms, and virtually all roads to the interior are closed. The local helicopter service has done a booming business as one key passenger ferry route from the mainland remains shut down.

Some key trouble spots: 1. Flash flood in Falls Canyon above Avalon destroyed a dozen wareshouses and workshops. 2. Downtown was flooded; buisnesses have reopened. 3. Avalon’s muddy harbor forced cancellation of glass-bottom boat tours. 4. Road to airport open to emergency traffic only. 5. Thompson Reservoir overflowing. 6. Part of road collapsed.

Catalina Route Suspended

Silt and debris from this month’s storms have blocked the narrow entrance to Queensway Landing, stranding two Santa Catalina Island passenger ferries at their docks. Long Beach has hired a dredging company to dig out the channel. Other ferries to Catalina continue to operate out of San Pedro and Newport.

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