Strong winds sent waves crashing into the edge of the Humboldt Bay Trail on Saturday, splashing water across the trail into the newly built overwash zone beyond the path. The surge caught cyclists off guard and offered an early look at how the corridor may perform heading into a winter expected to bring King Tides, El Niño conditions, and elevated sea levels.The trail, completed this year, was designed to withstand occasional flooding. But the waves that rolled across the pavement Saturday were forceful enough to send cyclists hugging the inland edge of the path, trying to maneuver around spray and sheets of water washing over it.Jen Kalt, executive director of Humboldt Waterkeeper, happened to be driving southbound on 101 when she witnessed the waves splashing over the barrier toward the trail.“When I saw it, I was driving by, and I was like, ‘Whoa!’ And I saw some people on bikes dodging the waves and stuff. I mean, it was in multiple spots too,” said Kalt. “It was really windy, and the wind was blowing the waves straight against the shoreline there.”Humboldt County Public Works Deputy Director Hank Seemann said the trail’s raised elevation has already prevented flooding during major tide events.“Part of the design of the Bay Trail was to account for that and to build in more resilience and flood protection, and so the Bay Trail, the ground was raised along the railroad corridor, in some cases up to one or two feet,” said Seeman. “That’s a big reason why, (with) the floods we had last January, which was the new high tide of record for the bay, that event did not flood 101 because of the new protection that we got from the Bay Trail.”Seemann said the shoreline remains vulnerable because only remnant patches of salt marsh remain, leaving long stretches of exposed mudflat that allow wind waves to build across the bay. The county reinforced the shoreline with new rock slope protection during trail construction, but the corridor still sits directly in the path of wind‑driven waves.“El Niño presents some new challenges this winter because, especially when we get to the king tides that are going to happen on Thanksgiving and Christmas,” said Seeman. “If we had a convergence of those high tides, plus the effects of El Niño from the Kelvin wave, plus storm surge-like effects if there are storms over the ocean that are kind of pushing water north, plus, if we have local wind events that are generating local winds, then all that could stack up to increase water levels and create those wind waves.”Keep Reading
