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Corte Madera holds town hall after king-tide floods; town prioritizes Marina Village berm and a preparedness playbook
Summary
At a special Flood Board meeting, town staff reviewed the early-January king-tide flooding, outlined immediate response improvements (sandbag stations, pump operations, debris collection) and identified raising the Marina Village berm as the top near-term capital priority while pursuing state and federal grants.
Corte Madera officials and residents met at a special Flood Board town hall to review severe tidal flooding that struck parts of town in early January and to map next steps for both immediate preparedness and longer-term flood protection. Town Manager Adam Wolf framed the meeting as a community conversation to gather damage reports and to plan short-term operational thresholds alongside multi-year projects.
Chris Good, the town's director of public works, attributed the flooding to a confluence of a predicted king tide (about 7.1 feet) plus low atmospheric pressure, storm surge and strong winds that produced tides roughly 1.5 feet higher than forecasts. He said the closest gauge in Richmond recorded a high tide of about 8.71 feet. Good noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency's base flood elevation for Corte Madera is 10 feet for a 100-year flood, and warned that combined storm surge and wave run-up could raise water substantially higher in a future event.
Good and other staff mapped the worst impacts to Marina Village, Mariner Cove, Paradise Drive and the Lucky/Pfeiffer/Nellin area, and said a known low point at the San Clemente Creek berm was overtopped during the event. The town delivered 35 tons of sand, two pallets of sandbags on Jan. 3 and provided debris boxes and temporary pop-up permit assistance; street sweepers and pump stations were kept running to aid drainage. The council declared a local emergency on Jan. 6, 2026, to pursue emergency funding should the state declare a matching emergency.
Town staff identified the top near-term capital priority as initiating a project to fortify and raise the existing Marina Village flood berm. The town intends to pursue public outreach, preliminary design and environmental review, with a topographic survey already funded to locate berm low points. Good warned that until a flood barrier exists, storm-drain upgrades mainly help after tides recede and do not prevent overtopping during extreme tidal events.
Phoebe Golden, the town's climate action and adaptation coordinator, summarized prior planning and engagement: the 2017 Marina Village study, the county's BayWAVE sea-level-rise assessment, Corte Madera's 2021 Climate Adaptation Assessment and a 2023 Shoreline Adaptation Engagement effort. Golden said some adaptation measures were removed in earlier drafts after resident pushback and that the current work aims to re-engage shoreline neighborhoods on co-developed steps.
Officials said the town is pursuing grants including state sources (Coastal Conservancy and the Ocean Protection Council) and had been preliminarily selected for a FEMA Flood Mitigation Assistance grant but had not yet received a final award. Staff cautioned that permitting for bay-side work involves many agencies and can add time and mitigation costs; town leaders said centralized, town-led permitting and design would simplify approvals compared with dozens of individual homeowner applications.
Adam Wolf said the town will develop a preparedness "playbook" that sets tide-level thresholds to trigger staffing, sandbag deployment and communication. Residents were urged to use the town's damage-report map and survey, sign up for Alert Marin and NIXLE, and provide documentation that could support grant applications.
The meeting closed with staff committing to topographic surveys, ongoing grant efforts, improved pre-storm communication and continuing the conversation with the Flood Board and the community.
