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Long Beach Residents Brace For Hurricane Swell

South Bay residents spent Sunday filling sandbags and securing their homes in advance of coming high swells, tides

On Long Beach's peninsula, the beach sand was being put to good use Tuesday afternoon as local residents gathered sandbags to shore up their homes, worried about possible flooding from a storm surge headed to the SoCal area.

"By 8 o'clock this morning there we no sandbags left," said Dr. Edwin Shackeroff of the area's Community Emergency Response Team.

The high surf and high tide were expected to hit sometime Tuesday and peak Wednesday in Long Beach. Waves could reach 15 feet in some areas, the National Weather Service reported.

Residents on the peninsula, one of the lowest lying areas of the city, weren't taking any changes with possible flooding from the large swells.

"It came all the way, rushed down the whole peninsula," resident James Welty said, recalling a high tide event in March, when the water broke through a sand berm built to protect the homes.

In Long Beach, the breakwater shields much of the shore from crashing waves, but the wall ends before the Alamitos Jetty, and that's where residents said concern starts.

"We didn't have no bags, so I was using a broom to get the water out, doing what i could to keep it from flooding. My neighbor wasn't home (and) the water was up to his tires."

Welty filled his own sandbags Tuesday, and then helped neighbors.

Bulldozers worked to build a berm higher than the previous ones, although residents hoped it was just a precaution.

"We know the power of the ocean, and we live in nature and nature sometimes has its fury," Shackeroff said.

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