High tides flood second Zuma Beach entrance, leaving one risky way in Play

Two of the three entrances to the Zuma Beach parking lot are under water today.

Strong wave action and high tides have caused the Zuma lagoon to fill up to very high levels. Two feet of salt water now covers the paved crossing between the parking lot and Westward Beach Road. It's barricaded off.

The primary access for hundreds of beachgoers' cars — the Zuma Creek undercrossing — has been flooded with creek water for months. It remains flooded today.

This leaves only one way in and out of the parking lot: a treacherous left turn crossing PCH just 150 feet west of the Busch Drive traffic signal.

County Beaches and Harbors has put up detour signs advising PCH traffic to turn left onto Westward Beach Road. As we just reported, that detour leads to a flooded lagoon crossing. The detour signs lead to a closed road, underwater. Brilliant.

To top it off, Westward Beach Road has been narrowed significantly for a City of Malibu construction project along Zuma Creek — the same creek that is flooded at the underpass and at the Arizona crossing.

Malibu activists were burning the email machines yesterday, trying to get Beaches and Harbors to change the flashing detour signs so that motorists don't pile up at the closed lagoon crossing. Probably, drivers can't make out the signs anyway.

Net result: expect heavy traffic and occasional crashes until the water goes down in the lagoon.

Of course, the city, the county, and the public have been warned this would happen. For years they have been warned. But no one has lifted a finger to fix the situation.