A well-known California beach has been stripped down to a rocky stretch just as Labor Day weekend brings crowds to the coast, with most of its sand washed away and its public parking lot closed indefinitely.
Tamarack State Beach in Carlsbad lost the bulk of its sand over a two-week span, and a fresh round of pounding surf on Aug. 31 hurled baseball-sized rocks into the parking lot, prompting California State Parks to shut the area down.
“I’ve never noticed it as stark as it is now. That beach is totally gone. It’s never been like that,” Ken Bykowski, an Arizona visitor in North County for his annual vacation, told NBC.
The closure comes at a particularly difficult moment for beachgoers, with Labor Day weekend typically drawing heavy coastal traffic. Instead of pulling into the Tamarack lot, visitors are now scrambling for spaces along Carlsbad Boulevard and nearby residential streets.
Officials have not announced when the public lot might reopen.
Because the lot is on state property, Carlsbad officials do not have the authority to carry out repairs on their own.
The city manager has said local crews are prepared to assist if they are needed.
The damage comes after Hurricane Genevieve sent powerful swells into Southern California in early August, battering beaches and briefly disrupting key infrastructure.
At Tamarack, the churning surf washed away nearly all the sand, severely damaged the parking lot, forced several lifeguard towers to be relocated and left the massive boulders bordering the beach — known as riprap — dangerously unstable.
“California State Parks is continuing our work with coastal engineers to develop a design plan for the site while monitoring the parking lot to maintain safe public access,” Jo Biswas, a spokesperson for California State Parks, told SFGATE via email.
The destruction is plainly visible from longtime businesses overlooking the Pacific.
Vigilucci’s Seafood and Steakhouse has been perched above the waves along Carlsbad Boulevard for 30 years.
Owner Roberto Vigilucci has watched the coastline change during that time.
“The waves were huge this summer. I’m not a surfer, but ‘wow.’ I have a lot of my guys that work for me that are surfers. It’s a popular spot,” he told NBC.
And Tamarack isn’t the only California beach getting hammered.
In August, Malibu called on the state’s transportation agency to “address rapidly worsening coastal erosion” along the Pacific Coast Highway.
Over the final weekend of August, Laguna Beach rangers also shut down the main parking lot at popular Aliso Beach after large swells shoved sand across the lot.
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