MALIBU—Californians have been flocking to the shore during the past week to witness the 10’20 foot waves that Hurricane Marie has been sending to the southern California coastline.

Surfers and civilians alike were in awe of the waves that have been crashing against the beaches, offering surfers a challenge, civilians a show and oceanfront homeowners a scare as the waves seemed to break higher and higher along the shoreline.

Hurricane Marie started like most hurricanes at this time of year, off the south Mexico coast. According to Decoded Science, the hurricane is expected to continue it’s route northwest; but the havoc it is wreaking on several cities in the southern California area has many on edge.

The Malibu Pier has taken some damage from the fast moving water, causing some pillars to be knocked out from under the dock, as captured from a New York Times video. The pull and strength of waves has several beaches along the California coastline closing down to help keep beach goers safe from the unusual waves; but some have not been so lucky.

On Tuesday, August 26, at 11:30 a.m., an unidentified surfer was pulled from the waters near the Malibu Pier, causing the California State Park officials to close the pier down, according to the Los Angeles Times. On the

island of Santa Catalina, the waves left destroyed a boatyard, according to a tweet from Don Knabe, a Supervisor of the County of Los Angeles’s Fourth District on August 27.

As of August 29, the storm appears to be wearing down, according to the NASA/NOAA GOES project, who posted on the NASA website images of the storm degrading it from a hurricane status to a tropical storm.

A release posted to the NASA website stated that “at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC) on Friday, August 29, Marie became a post-tropical storm about 985 miles (1,595 km) west-southwest of San Diego, California. It was last centered near 27.6 north and 132.5 west.

Marie’s maximum sustained winds were near 40 mph (65 kph) and it was moving to the northwest at 14 mph (22 kph). Marie has moved over cooler waters, which has sapped evaporation and thunderstorm development.