PRESS RELEASE

Above: City Beach Maintenance crews conduct storm cleanup efforts near Belmont Veterans
Memorial Pier on Feb. 7, 2024, following a series of winter storms.

Long Beach, CA – Following a series of winter storms that impacted Long Beach and much of California over the past several days, the City of Long Beach is sharing the storm preparedness, response and mitigation efforts conducted. Since Feb. 1, Long Beach experienced nearly 10 inches of rain, more than triple the historic average rainfall for the entire month of February. While the high volume of rain over a short period of time led to localized flooding in some areas of Long Beach, aftereffects were greatly minimized due to City and community preparedness. There were no major road closures and impacts to public-facing City services were very limited.

“This was a historic storm. We were fully prepared and thankfully there was minimal impacts throughout the city,” said Mayor Rex Richardson. “I am appreciative of our Emergency Operations Center and Incident Management Team for coordinating our City's emergency response. I commend our frontline crews for working around the clock the past several days, making sure we were prepared and our community was safe.”

As with any storm, cleanup efforts need to be conducted and will take upwards of several days to complete. Cleanup efforts that have been taking place since the storm subsided include:

• Debris, trash and fallen tree limb cleanup, including 39 fallen trees and many more fallen tree limbs and thousands of palm fronds.
• Crews continue to address 38 streetlight outages and 26 traffic signal outages, restoring and replacing as needed.
• Making sure main arterial corridors are free of debris.
• Cleaning parking lots and marinas.
• Addressing standing water as a result of the high volume of water over a short period of time.
• Developing remediation plans for at least 41 City owned and leased facilities with known leaks and water damage. Inspections will continue at City facilities.

The City's emergency response structures played a vital role in minimizing the impact of the storms. Long Beach has a well-established emergency management system that includes interdepartmental coordination between Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Communications, Public Works, Fire, Police, Health and Human Services, and Parks, Recreation and Marine, among others. This integrated approach allows for efficient internal coordination and communications, and timely and effective response efforts to ensure the safety of residents and safeguarding of City services.

To minimize any potential damage or dangerous situations locally due to the anticipated severe weather systems, extensive preparation efforts were conducted in the days leading up to and throughout the storms. The following is not a comprehensive list of the work that was conducted, but rather some highlights:

Emergency Operations, Coordination and Communications

• Activated the City Emergency Operations Center at a Level 2, a partial activation that requires coordination across multiple departments.
• Stood up a Mobile Command Post and were fully operational in unified command across multiple departments.
• Coordinated with LA County Office of Emergency Management and Disaster Management Area Coordinators in intelligence sharing and regional efforts and planning.
• Activated the Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), LBFD’s Search and Rescue, LBPD’s Police Explorers, and Medical Reserve Corps, as well as other volunteers, equaling nearly 100 people.
• Activated longbeach.gov/lbrain, a central communications hub, to keep the community informed.
• Issued four storm related press releases/public notices to local and regional media.
• Issued two alerts to the community via the AlertLB notification system.
• Kept the community informed with over 165 social media posts across activated City departments.
• Conducted dozens of press interviews.
• Conducted two livestreamed briefings for the community with Mayor Rex Richardson and incident responders.

Preparedness and Mitigation

• Monitored, rebuilt and fortified protective sand berms along the shoreline – a mile-long wall of sand about 9 feet high by 9 feet wide – hauling over 850,000 cubic feet of sand.
• Cleared miles of storm water drainage channels.  
• Inspected, monitored and cleared hundreds of catch basins throughout the city, paying close attention to areas of known localized flooding.
• Deployed six high-capacity mobile pumps at flood locations to minimize impacts.
• Inspected and continuously monitored 23 pump stations managed by the City.
• Prepared emergency response equipment such as high-capacity portable pumps, vacuum trucks, emergency generators and lighting for deployment to be utilized citywide as needed to respond to urgent situations.
• Numerous crews were on site and on standby to address flooding, catch basin cleaning, pump station failure, road closures, street lighting outages, traffic signal outages, tree service, generator deployment, infrastructure failure and respond to requests from the community.
• LBFD swiftwater rescue team members rescued 19 passengers from a dismast sailboat off the Long Beach shoreline.
• Activated an additional sandbag distribution center at Veterans Stadium.
• Made over 80,000 sandbags available to Long Beach residents.
• Activated the Inclement Weather Shelter to provide additional shelter during the storm to more than 70 people experiencing homelessness. This is in addition to the City’s Winter Shelter which can accommodate 125 people.
• Conducted outreach to people experiencing homelessness in the LA River and throughout the Long Beach community, offering shelter and advising of potentially dangerous storm conditions.
• Checked storm drain inlets on the airfield at Long Beach Airport and pumped water away as needed to ensure safe operations and minimal delays or cancellations.

As the storms subside and Long Beach returns to normalcy, the City remains committed to its emergency preparedness and response capabilities. Through investments in infrastructure, improved communication channels, and community engagement, Long Beach intends to further strengthen its resilience in the face of future significant weather events and other natural disasters.

About the City of Long Beach
Long Beach is nestled along the Southern California coast and home to approximately 466,000people. As an award-winning full-service charter city, Long Beach offers the amenities of a metropolitan city while maintaining a strong sense of individual and diverse neighborhoods, culture and community. With a bustling downtown and over six miles of scenic beaches, Long Beach is a renowned tourist and business destination and home to the iconic Queen Mary, nationally recognized Aquarium of the Pacific and Long Beach Airport, award-winning Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center and world-class Port of Long Beach.

For more information about the City of Long Beach, visit longbeach.gov/. Follow us on social to keep up with the latest news: Facebook, X, Instagram and YouTube.