Retired Santa Cruz Wharf supervisor says wharf was breaking apart, collapse could've been prevented
Most of the debris has been picked up from the Santa Cruz Wharf collapse on Dec. 23, and the question now is what happens to the historic structure going forward? But there is at least one man in town who says it never had to happen.
People in Santa Cruz were shocked when a 150-foot section at the end of the wharf fell into the ocean after being hit by 30-foot waves. But it didn't shock Jon Bombaci.
"I had been telling the city leadership for years that this was going to happen," Bombaci said.
Bombaci worked for decades on the wharf, serving his last 11 years as wharf supervisor before retiring in 2021. He said old steel fasteners had been loosening and the structure had been slowly breaking apart for years, losing its "sheer," which is its ability to withstand the force of the water coming from the sides.
"There has to be structural integrity there or everything starts to move independently," he said. "My immediate thought was this is just a tragic unforced error. Because we had a plan in place back in 2013 to prevent exactly this."
Bombaci said they had a proposal ready to go—with funding—that would have widened the pier, adding a pedestrian walkway on each side.
He is convinced that would have strengthened the structure, preventing Monday's collapse, but it never happened.
California Environmental Quality Act lawsuits filed by a small group of residents stalled the project. When the California Coastal Commission gave tentative approval, it restricted construction to only stormy winter months to protect nesting seagulls.
"And then also, just for normal maintenance, they implemented a 300-foot buffer around any nesting seagull. So, if you look at the wharf, it takes five seagull nests to basically knock out the entire wharf," Bombaci said. "The irony is, if you lose the structure, the birds lose their nesting area. So everybody lost."
So what's next? The wharf remains closed for now but there is a question whether it will be repaired at all.
At a press briefing four days after the collapse, Mayor Fred Keeley told the media, "It would be irresponsible if we didn't ask the question, 'What is the right thing to do here?' But to say, 'We're simply going to put it back' is, I think, much more risky and, frankly, irresponsible than having a serious conversation."
So far, the wharf has seen nothing but conversation. Rebuilding the end of the structure seems unlikely, but to save the rest of it is going to take a lot of work. A long-time resident named Jesse thinks it's worth it.
"I'm just hoping that they can repair it. I want to think for the best," he said. "For probably the last hundred years there's been a boardwalk and a wharf here. And if they take that away, it won't be the same. Tourists won't come here for that reason anymore."
Earlier this year, the city approved a new master plan, eliminating the pedestrian walkway, which was the subject of the lawsuits. But because of the delays, the city missed out on millions of dollars in grants.
To save the rest of the wharf will take effort. There is a path forward to doing that, but it will need some roadblocks removed. There's no guarantee that will happen.
"It could happen," said a skeptical Bombaci. "I hope this is a wakeup call and they just, you know. They were poised to start doing all of this work. It's just, it's a little late in the game."
