Waves draw lots of rescues

While Newport Beach residents and visitors alike enjoyed sun-soaked days with high surf past weekend, lifeguards and police had their work cut out for them dealing with the ballooning population.

Fire Department officials estimate Newport Beach’s coastline averaged more than 100,000 visitors from Friday to Sunday, with lifeguards making more than 900 rescues in the three-day period. Friday, lifeguards made 381 rescues. Monte Valentin, 50, of Lawndale, was the only fatality. He died bodysurfing Friday when waves reached as high as 25 feet.

Lifeguards performed about 6,000 preventive actions — early warnings before someone’s in immediate danger — a day, lifeguard officials said. While the crowds were not unusual for this time of year, lifeguards said there was an unusually high number of rescues. Most of Newport Beach’s coastline was still under a red flag Saturday afternoon as a south swell from a Tahitian storm brought big waves to Southern California.

With the crowds come the cars, and much of the Balboa Peninsula was flooded with parking problems.

Authorities said it could take more than an hour to get from the 55 Freeway to the Wedge, which had virtually no parking.

“We do expect heavier traffic in the summer months; however, the combination of high volume beach traffic and people coming to the area wanting to view the high surf created higher than normal traffic congestion this past week,� Newport Beach Lt. Craig Fox said.

Police did post electronic signs warning of the traffic, Fox said.

He added officers issued “quite a few more� parking tickets, some to residents, than on a typical weekend. Exact totals were not immediately available.