Bracing for a Reprise of ‘83, ’88 Calamities : Weather: Devastating storms in those years left flooding and destruction in their wakes. This one shouldn’t be as bad.

Nearly a decade ago, crashing waves and heavy rains swallowed portions of the Seal Beach Pier and flooded more than 700 Huntington Beach homes. In January, 1988, another wet winter storm swept away miles of sand, leaving in its place a swath of destruction along the shore and inflicting $5.6 million worth of damage on Orange County.

Meteorologists say the same conditions exist as in 1983 and 1988, but the storm that is expected to hit Southern California today will not be as strong. It is expected to cause some flooding in low-lying areas.

Officials called the March, 1983, storm the worst in decades.

Seven-foot-high waves slammed into much of the county’s 42-mile coastline, knocking out more than half of the Seal Beach Pier.

Residents compared witnessing the damage to the pier to watching World War II movies. They said the pier wilted under the bombardment of waves. South Coast Plaza closed for the first time in its history and schools were evacuated. Fish from overflowing lakes in Laguna Canyon were seen swimming down roads.

Rain fell at a furious rate. Four inches dropped in six hours, with half an inch coming in eight minutes.

Homes in Costa Mesa and more than 700 in Huntington Beach were flooded when the torrents eroded a dozen gaps in the flood-control levees. Many had as much as 4 1/2 feet of water inside.

Government officials and insurance spokesmen at the time said that fewer than 5% of Orange County homeowners had flood insurance.

In 1988, 25-foot-high breakers repeatedly pounded a 135-mile stretch of coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego counties. Officials said the high tides combined with 20-foot waves and strong winds to whisk away as much as 10 feet of sand from beachfront homes north of Laguna Beach.

The storm was blamed for eight deaths and $68 million in property damage in Southern California, including $5 million in Orange County. Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties were declared emergency areas.

The storm ate away at the Huntington Beach Pier, first snapping the End Cafe, a restaurant at the tip of the pier, on the first day of the storm. More than 250 feet of the pier was lost in the tempest.