LAPUSH — Heavy surf combined with a high tide breached the south jetty at LaPush on Monday, Quileute tribal officials said.
No damage was reported in the village.
“There is no imminent danger to the school or the village; however, if the jetty were to break, the ocean waves would be able to push a lot of gravel into the river, undoing the dredging work that was just finished and having an adverse impact of the rivers navigability,” said Larry Burtness, planner and grants writer with the tribe.
Sunny skies were seen throughout the North Olympic Peninsula on Monday, with some ice reported early in the day.
No major highway wrecks were reported in either Clallam or Jefferson counties.
LaPush’s south jetty experienced severe erosion in the first week of January. The Army Corps of Engineers began to make repairs on Jan. 7.
The Coast Guard closed the bar at the mouth of the Quillayute River as 20-foot swells rolled in Sunday.
A 9.4 foot high tide occurred Monday at noon.
“There is some erosion to the beaches and surrounding areas,” Coast Guard Petty Officer Nathan Bradshaw said.
The National Weather Service lifted a high surf advisory as swells dropped to about 12 feet Monday afternoon.
The Coast Guard reopened the bar at about noon.
“The waves have come down considerably,”said Kirby Cook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle.
“They were up above 20 feet on the coastal waters early this morning. They’ve come down to 12 to 13 feet since midnight last night.”
Burtness said the erosion took about 40 feet of the bank and threatened to break through the jetty to the river.
“At the same time, erosion problems had been made worse on the river side by ocean waves from the west that move through the opening on the south end of the north jetty,” Burtness wrote in an email.
“We had about 5,000 yards of gravel available on site from the October dredging and that material was used to fill the eroded area on the First Beach side. The river side was repaired with large rock, using 1,500 tons of rock as armor on the bank of the river.”
Burtness said the Corps of Engineers will be on site today to evaluate the new erosion.
“There was some sensitivity about waves above nine feet,” Cook said.
“Again, the big story is the surf has come down.”
Cook said another weather system will move pass over the North Olympic Peninsula today.
Winds along the Strait of Juan de Fuca are forecast be 30 to 40 mph, with gusts as high as 60 mph, Cook said.
Most of the moisture will be south of the Olympic Mountains, Cook said.
“It’s kind of your typical, moderate January storm, he said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
