Eight people were hospitalized after large waves hit multiple coastal towns in California on Friday, prompting officials to issue evacuation orders.
The New York Post reported that despite the orders, some residents chose to stay in their homes and attempted to wait out the storms on Thursday, which affected Ventura and Santa Cruz, among other locations.
In one instance, a rogue wave breached a concrete barrier and swept up about 20 people on Pierpont Beach in Verona.
"We put evacuation warnings into place around 8 a.m. this morning for this area and, as you can see, these waves are incredibly powerful," Ashley Keehn, the information officer for the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, said in a statement KTVU FOX 2.
According to the National Weather Service Bay Area, some of the waves in Santa Cruz reached 28 to 33 feet high, and the storms have caused planks of wood and logs to wash up on shore.
"They're washing logs up here. A lot of debris, a lot of driftwood. So we've been asking people to avoid the direct coastal area," Keehn said.
The Ventura police said on social media that there was high surf "throughout the night," and the department's "heavy equipment operators and their dozers are reinforcing and filling in the gaps to protect the community of Pierpont, in the city of Ventura. The finished berm is about 7 feet high and about a mile in length, running from San Pedro St. down to Greenock Lane."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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