Photo taken by Ms. Jen with her Nokia Lumia 1020.
Tues 11.12.13 – Yes, it is November, which means in the annual calendar of the great city of Seal Beach, it is time for the Caterpillar earthmovers to move sand from the west/north side of the beach, under the pier, to form a sand berm on the south/east side of the pier.
One of the peculiarities of Seal Beach is that the south/east side of town is mostly a bit under sea level and a fairly elaborate series of storm drains and a long earth dyke along the Naval base protect the south side of town from flooding during high tide or winter storm surges. According to my aunt, the flooding was fairly regular back in the 60s and early 70s before the big storm drains were put in. Lake Seal Beach still occurs to a lesser extent with the sand berm.
Thus, in November, several big Caterpillar earthmovers come to the beach for a week and move sand into a berm and then in April, they reverse and move the sand back flat onto the beach. On occasion, if the berm is not up to its job, and Lake Seal Beach forms, then a smaller tractor will come and re-arrange sand.
I, of course, must go document the migratory patterns of the Yellow Semi-Annual Earthmover.
In years past I have taken photos and video, posted it here and on Flickr. This year, I decided to find as many of the photos on Flickr as possible and make a tag for easy search, I give you “The Gathering of the Earthmovers” at Flickr.
Some photos over the years on this blog:
2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011