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Devastated Long Beach homeowners launched a scathing attack on Mayor Rex Richardson after Tropical Storm Rachel destroyed their multimillion-dollar beachfront houses.
Dennis Poulsen, 84, built his beachside mansion on Ocean Boulevard 21 years ago and saw “just a little bit of water” seep inside last week, but his anger toward city hall ran deep.
“The mayor of Long Beach doesn’t give a damn about this community… His natural constituency is not here and he doesn’t really care,” he told the Daily Mail.
For some residents, the storm turned dream homes into devastating losses. Natalie Cabrera, 59, who had rented a beachfront bungalow on the peninsula for just a year and a half, was left heartbroken after relentless waves battered her property and damaged its foundation.
“I don’t want to leave. At all. Ever. This was my dream,” she told The California Post, describing how water forced its way underneath the building.
“The floor is squishy. Because the ocean just kept hitting and hitting my home.”
The latest storm comes after Southern California’s coastline was battered by Hurricane Marie over Labor Day weekend and Hurricane Polo in the following weeks.
Peninsula resident Robert Wells, 80, whose family has owned a summer home in the area since 1962, called the storm’s destruction unprecedented.
“It’s never happened like this before,” Wells told The Post. He pointed blame directly at city officials, claiming a protective sand berm actually exacerbated the flooding, turning what could have been minor damage into a major disaster.
“There is a class action lawsuit forming against the city of Long Beach,” he said.
Long Beach officials distributed 7,600 sandbags to residents, bringing the total handed out during the three recent storms to approximately 15,000.
As of last Sunday, at least eight buildings representing 13 addresses were red-tagged as unsafe to enter, while another was yellow-tagged, allowing residents limited access to retrieve their belongings, according to Mayor Richardson.
“These kinds of impacts are not normal. They’re unprecedented for our community, and while our crews have been working hard day and night… These continued threats have brought significant damage right to our shoreline’s front door,” Mayor Richardson had said last week.