The City Is Exaggerating Its Damage — The OB Pier Does Not Need to Be Closed Till Spring

By Geoff Page

As recounted in The Rag’s November 22 story, the city has decided to keep the OB Pier closed until the winter storm season is over.

The Lifeguards closed the pier October 20 because of high surf. The San Diego Fire Department announced the closure in a Tweet. The Lifeguard Department is part of the Fire Department now. The Tweet said the pier would probably open the next day.

Thirty-one days later, this writer and others began pressing the city, wanting to know why the pier was still closed. No one responded. The Citizen’s Task Force that is working on the pier replacement effort was in the dark as well.

Finally, the city made an announcement and the city’s spokesperson, José Ysea, said the following:

“While it was closed, the pier incurred surface damage and has remained closed since,” Ysea said. “Once the storm season has passed, the city will reassess and determine the next steps for the iconic 57-year-old pier.”

This writer went to the pier and swept it with good binoculars and could not see any damage at all. Realizing that was not a good enough inspection, a drone was put in action. As suspected, the “surface damage” claim by the city is, well, a gross exaggeration.

The first picture below shows one section of the new rail where the top board and the one lower board are gone. The stanchions are all new and held up fine. Fixing this would take very little effort.

The second picture shows another section where the one lower board is partially disconnected. It just needs to be picked up and re-anchored.

Anyone who wants to see the drone video may do so here

Keeping the pier closed all winter is an unnecessary disservice to all the San Diegans, and the tourists, who love going out on the pier.  The city saved millions over the years neglecting the pier, there should be plenty of money from what the city saved to keep fixing some rail.

The city knows of no other damage other than what is pictured here. Unless the city can identify structural damage, there is no need to close the pier until next spring, absolutely none.

The several engineering reports on the pier going back years contained the following recommendation about when to close the pier:

1. In order to minimize the wave loads, the pier should be closed to the public when sea levels (including wave crests) encroach with [sic] 2-feet of any pile caps. To aid in this determination, it is recommended that marks be placed on pile caps as visual reference.

Two feet from a pile cap is a bit misleading. The pile caps that are on top of the pier columns are 2.5 feet tall. These are topped by a 1.5-foot thick prestressed concrete slab. That means the closures would come when the wave crests or water level are six feet from the top of the deck. The recommended marks were never placed, the advice never followed.

The pier does not need to be closed. The city lifeguards just need to monitor the water height and close it only when necessary. And, to do that, the city needs to make the marks recommended long ago. We all need to hammer the city and get the pier open when it can be open. And it can be open.