Part of Santa Cruz Wharf in California Collapses in High Surf

Three people were rescued from the wharf. The powerful surf also fatally trapped a man under debris on a beach in Santa Cruz, the authorities said.

The end of a wharf that draws visitors to Santa Cruz, Calif., collapsed in high surf on Monday, sending three people into the water, while a man died at a nearby beach after being trapped under debris by a wave, the authorities said.

All three people at the wharf, two engineers and a project manager who were inspecting the structure, were rescued and taken to a hospital, city officials said at a news conference. No one was seriously injured or believed to be missing, Mayor Fred Keeley of Santa Cruz said.

About 15 miles southeast of the wharf, a man died after being stuck under debris washed up by a wave at Sunset State Beach, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said. The man was freed by bystanders and rescuers, taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, California State Parks said.

The wharf was built in 1914 and, at 2,745 feet, bills itself on Instagram as the longest fully wooden wharf in the Western Hemisphere. It has recently hosted holiday-themed events, like photo sessions with Santa Claus.

The end of the wharf was closed to the public when the last 150 feet of the structure collapsed into the Pacific Ocean at around 12:45 p.m., city officials said. The city had already determined that the end of the wharf needed to be taken down and repaired after it was damaged in storms over the past several years, officials said.

Heavy wooden pilings, part of the wharf deck, a restroom and part of a former restaurant were lost in the water, city officials said, as were two pieces of construction equipment, a crane and a skid steer loader.

Mr. Keeley urged people not to get near the ocean, warning that pilings that were being pounded by the waves posed a threat to boaters and swimmers.

The city manager, Matt Huffaker, called the collapse “another testament to the power of our changing climate.”

“Despite all the effort that our staff put in collectively to planning for these potential incidents, each year it’s really blowing through our forecasts,” Mr. Huffaker said. He added: “Our coastline is wild. It’s unpredictable. And we continue to see that winter season over winter season.”

The city’s parks and recreation director, Tony Elliot, said that city officials were in the midst of a $4 million project to restore the damaged end of the wharf when it was destroyed on Monday.

Robert Oatey, the Santa Cruz fire chief, said that firefighters were already patrolling the coastline and lifeguards were positioned on a nearby cliff when the wharf collapsed. The firefighters and lifeguards responded and pulled two people from the water, he said. A third person who went into the ocean also made it to safety, he said.

Rose Ann Mazzone, owner of Bonnie’s Gifts, a family-run shop, said it appeared to be business as usual on the wharf on Monday afternoon, even with the high surf warning: People milled about the stores, others watched the ferocious swell and surfers paddled through the water. There were few customers inside the store when an emergency alarm blasted across the pier, Ms. Mazzone said.

“We didn’t know what was going on,” Ms. Mazzone said. Then she saw wharf crew members running toward the end of the pier and heard the wail of sirens. They quickly learned the end of the pier had collapsed, and the authorities began directing people to evacuate, Ms. Mazzone said.

“Everyone was yelling, ‘Get off the wharf,’” she said. She described the evacuation as calm and orderly.

Rob McPherson, an owner of Stagnaro Brothers Seafood, was busy preparing seafood orders for customers to pick up on Christmas Eve morning when members of his staff said the end of the wharf had fallen off. Mr. McPherson, whose restaurant is at the farthest end of the pier near the construction, stepped outside and saw a section of the pier float by with a small tractor on it.

Mr. McPherson called it a “terrible incident” that “nobody was anticipating.” The swells were big on Monday, but they’ve been bigger, he said.

The collapse came as the National Weather Service issued a high surf warning, cautioning that “dangerously large breaking waves of 30 to 40 feet, with largest wave sets up to 60 feet” were possible. The warning area included San Francisco, the coastal North Bay and Point Reyes National Seashore, the San Francisco Peninsula coast, Monterey Bay and the Big Sur coast.

Late Monday afternoon, the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office and Central Fire issued an evacuation order for Rio Del Mar, Beach Drive and Las Olas area, warning of “large swells and high tides” and advising residents in those areas to evacuate immediately.

A barrage of powerful storms ripped through Northern California in January 2023, hitting the Santa Cruz region especially hard. The extreme weather destroyed more than half of the landmark Sea Cliff State Beach pier in Aptos, a town just south of Santa Cruz, and what remained was in danger of imminent collapse. The pier, which connected a World War I-era concrete tanker ship to the beach’s shoreline, was deemed beyond repair and was demolished.

Yan Zhuang contributed reporting.

John Keefe contributed reporting.