Breakwaters in San Pedro Bay damaged by Hurricane Marie

SAN PEDRO, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Surfers may have loved it, but it turns out the giant swells and pounding surf brought in by Hurricane Marie took out a good chunk of the breakwaters in the San Pedro Bay.

According to Jim Fields, project manager for the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach with the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers, a few areas were breached by the massive waves.

"We have three complete breaches in the structure," he said. "They do pose threats because with the breakwater not being completely functional, it can't stop the waves from coming through."

The hardest hit section was the middle of the breakwater, which protects the ports.

"Without a fully functional structure in place more energy is allowed to transmit through the harbor, into the harbor, and it moves the ships as they are at dock," Fields said. "It just makes it difficult to remove those large containers from the ships."

The repairs on the breakwater will be costly, with some estimates starting at $20 million. The process of hiring contractors is in the beginning stages as Hurricane Odile wreaked havoc in Baja California.

Residents in Belmont Shore and the peninsula braced for the worse with Hurricane Marie, but city crews mobilized quickly. Crews handed out sand bags and built up the sand berm along the 1.7-mile stretch of the beach.

Odile isn't expected to be as powerful as Marie. Long Beach Deputy City Manager Tom Modica said the city will be prepared.

"We don't believe there's really any cause for concern, that being said, storms are completely unpredictable... we did see the largest amount of wave activity that we've seen in our history and our crews were able to protect the residents from any damage," he said.