Newport Beach residents, business owners busy preparing for potential record-setting high tides

King tides caused more flooding along the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach on Monday, sending water into streets, homes and businesses for the second time in as many weeks. With even higher tides expected in the coming days, residents are racing to keep the water out. 

A family living on Balboa Boulevard was already armed with brooms as they worked to sweep the ocean water from their living room on Monday, just hours before even more powerful waves, paired with the Kelvin wave phenomenon, were expected to bring potentially record-setting tides to the area. 

"There's a three-story home next to us, and just from the high tide coming up, flooded the whole first floor," said 

Sandbags were stacked high near the Fun Zone and Pizza Pete's, some of the many businesses that just finished cleaning from the last flooding incident earlier in October. 

"Pizza Pete's, this morning, poor guy. He was scooping water out with a Coca-Cola cup," said Carson Hill.

Jan Naval, the pizza shop owner for the last 16 years, said he quickly realized the cup was no match for the water. 

"I was here at 8:30 and it's fine, hardly any water," Naval said. "I came back at 9 o'clock and it was like a lake here. ... Two weeks ago, no warning, we just woke up with water everywhere ... and it's dirty water."

Hill, who also runs his family's boat service business, said that sandbags stacked along the wall of the ferry dock have been unable to withstand Mother Nature. 

"We had an extremely high tide, which compromised the sea wall," Hill said. "It breached the sandbags, and then once it started flowing, the water just took out all the other sandbags. ... We're prepared for the high tide and the Kelvin wave, but there's no way you can really stop it without building up all our sea walls."

Newport Beach city crews were already working to fortify weak spots along the dock with tarps and more sandbags on Monday, while on the other side of the peninsula, workers were still busy using heavy equipment to construct a massive wall of sand.

"It's a big wall. We're pushing up a dozer and we brought 108 loads of sand at The Wedge," said Reece Waldron, of T.E. Waldron Inc.

Last week, city leaders declared a local emergency ahead of the king tides. which are expected to last into the new year.