California beach swallowed by furious surf as Labor Day weekend crowds face parking nightmare

A popular California beach has been battered into a rocky wasteland just as Labor Day weekend crowds descend on the coast, with nearly all the sand gone and the public parking lot shut down indefinitely.

Tamarack State Beach in Carlsbad lost most of its sand in just two weeks, and another pounding on Aug. 31 sent baseball-sized rocks across the parking lot, forcing California State Parks to close it.

“I’ve never noticed it as stark as it is now. That beach is totally gone. It’s never been like that,”  Ken Bykowski, who arrived from Arizona for his annual vacation in North County, told NBC.

The timing couldn’t be worse for beachgoers, it’s currently Labor Day weekend, traditionally a major getaway period, but visitors to Tamarack are instead being forced to hunt for parking along Carlsbad Boulevard and neighborhood side streets.

And there’s no timetable for when the public lot will reopen.

Because the lot sits on state property, Carlsbad officials don’t have the authority to make repairs.

The city manager has said local crews are ready to help if needed.

The latest mess follows Hurricane Genevieve’s early-August assault on Southern California, when huge swells ravaged beaches and briefly knocked out key infrastructure.

At Tamarack, the churning surf washed away nearly all the sand, severely damaged the parking lot, forced several lifeguard towers to be relocated and left the massive boulders bordering the beach — known as riprap — dangerously unstable.

“California State Parks is continuing our work with coastal engineers to develop a design plan for the site while monitoring the parking lot to maintain safe public access,” Jo Biswas, a spokesperson for California State Parks, told SFGATE via email.

The destruction is plainly visible from longtime businesses overlooking the Pacific.

Vigilucci’s Seafood and Steakhouse has been perched above the waves along Carlsbad Boulevard for 30 years.

Owner Roberto Vigilucci has watched the coastline change during that time.

“The waves were huge this summer. I’m not a surfer, but ‘wow’. I have a lot of my guys that work for me that are surfers. It’s a popular spot,” he told NBC.

And Tamarack isn’t the only California beach getting hammered.

In August, Malibu called on the state’s transportation agency to “address rapidly worsening coastal erosion” along the Pacific Coast Highway.

Over the final weekend of August, Laguna Beach rangers also shut down the main parking lot at popular Aliso Beach after large swells shoved sand across the lot.

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