California ports are defensing against increased flooding and sea level rise to enhance future maritime operability. The ports discussed their plans at the “Storms, Flooding and Sea Level Defense 2024 Conference” that took place on November 12th, at Oakland, California.
The conference was produced by the Propeller Club of Northern California and the Society of American Military Engineers (San Francisco Post).
Climate change is driving ports to invest in more resilient infrastructure to defend against events such as the atmospheric river that hit Port of Hueneme, located in Ventura County, California.
On December 21st, 2023 the Port was hit by 8 inches of rain in two hours.
In addition, two events hurt import shipments to the Port. One was a drought hurting blueberry shipments from Peru and a second event was hurricanes hurting Mexican banana imports, according to Kristin Decas, Executive Director, Port of Hueneme
In October, Decas said that the Port was hit with an atmospheric river of rain that destroyed the Port’s shoreside power system which had cost the Port $14 million to build. It will now need to be replaced at a cost of $40 million:
“On December 21st, 2023, we had an atmospheric river of rain come through the Port area. And … it had a very small reach, but we had three inches of rain in one hour and five inches of rain in the next hour for a total of 8 inches in two hours, just in this little area of the Port. They evacuated the Navy base (Naval Base Ventura County). We had so much water that it took out our shoreside power system, just decimated it. So, what took us so much effort to build and meet those rigorous California Air Resources Board regulations was taken out in one hour which cost us 10 years ago to build for $14 million. Today, the replacement cost is $40 million.”