Huntington Beach Photos
Pier Pilings
Photo: Pier pilings at Huntington Beach Pier
There's something so interesting about the barnacle covered pier pilings at California piers, and especially in Huntington Beach. The pier pilings are cleaned from time to time but the mollusks and sea critters do like to cling to the piers so surfer beware!
Pier pilings are wooden or concrete posts driven into the ground beneath the sea floor, providing the stilts for the platform base of a pier that allows us humans to "walk over water", basically. Pier pilings are one of the first parts of the pier to deteriorate and collapse during storms, or just through wear & tear. Huntington Beach Pier is on its latest rebuild since 1992 when citizens helped raise funds to rebuild a storm-damaged pier. It has withheld fairly well for several decades after engineers learned that they would need to find better materials for pier pilings, and raise the pier platform by a few feet to gain clearance from stronger waves during storms. The pilings are concrete treated with a special coating that slows the deterioration process significantly.