Years of warnings, mounting deaths: Who’s responsible for Santa Cruz’s North Coast?

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On Sunday night, 24-year-old Senah Park was swept into the ocean at Panther Beach. The Coast Guard was searching for her Monday.

Three women have already died at the same beach this year.

Ocean waters trapped eight people near Panther Beach on May 17. Some couldn’t swim.

Five escaped with help from rescuers, while three remained stranded, showing signs of hypothermia. A Coast Guard helicopter eventually lifted the three to safety, one by one, in a nighttime rescue.

Less than three weeks later, a young man fell to his death from a cliff at nearby Bonny Doon Beach.

Four days after that, two college students from Fremont were swept into the ocean near Panther Beach. In September, another woman died at the same beach.

The deaths came despite years of warnings that growing crowds were overwhelming the North Coast’s limited infrastructure and public services.

My review found at least 25 people have died along Santa Cruz County’s North Coast since 2021, including 14 fatalities involving beaches, the ocean or coastal cliffs and another 11 involving Highway 1. That count does not include Park, whose fate remained unknown Monday.

Cal Fire records also document more than 70 emergencies involving dangerous surf, rising tides, inaccessible cliffs and difficult rescues.

At the same time, public agencies and tourism organizations have worked to expand coastal access and draw more visitors to the North Coast’s rugged coastline.

Unfortunately, the safety infrastructure has not kept pace. 

Five years ago, after a spate of incidents, public officials described the public-safety threats as urgent. But today, California State Parks says it still lacks the resources to address worsening safety concerns.

Santa Cruz County has two separate multiagency groups working on coastal access and safety. Yet, years of coordination have yet to produce a clear answer to a basic question: Who is responsible for making the North Coast safer?

More ways to reach the coast

The public hungers for access to the coast, and access keeps expanding. 

The problem I’ve found is that safety infrastructure is not keeping pace with people. 

More than 22,000 acres of land with public access has been added to the North Coast since 2005, according to a state report. State parks officials say social media began drawing larger crowds to remote beaches in the late 2010s. The pandemic accelerated that trend, followed by better access and visitor facilities.

The Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission is building a 7.5-mile bicycle and pedestrian trail from Wilder Ranch State Park to Davenport, part of the larger Coastal Rail Trail network. The project includes new parking lots, restrooms and improved pedestrian access. It’s expected to be finished later this year.

Panther Beach got a new parking lot and restrooms in April. Three people have died there since – and another remains missing.

The federally managed Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument opened its first public trails in 2025, adding another major destination north of Davenport. Gabriel McKenna, a State Parks lifeguard supervisor, told me new infrastructure was “kind of legitimizing areas which were once less visited.”

The result, he explained, is more people reaching wild beaches that have no permanent lifeguard towers, where access is difficult and the ocean can be unforgiving.

Safety is not keeping up. 

Despite growing visitation and repeated emergencies, State Parks says it has received no additional staff or equipment for the North Coast, according to Jordan Burgess, deputy district superintendent for the Santa Cruz District of California State Parks.

The problem is not new.

In September 2021, the California State Coastal Conservancy published a staff report warning that growing crowds were overwhelming the North Coast’s limited infrastructure and public services. The plan was intended to bring together approximately 20 agencies and organizations to address public access, visitor impacts, infrastructure, safety and natural-resource protection along the North Coast.

It identified steep, rocky beach-access paths, emergency rescue calls, dangerous Highway 1 conditions and inadequate visitor facilities.

A committee of roughly 20 agencies and organizations did convene to develop a management plan using a $100,000 grant from the California State Coastal Conservancy to Santa Cruz County. The final North Coast Facilities and Management Plan, completed in 2024, acknowledged years of inadequate investment. 

Despite a lot of stakeholders, “visitor amenities, infrastructure, and law enforcement services are limited and do not always meet the public expectation for safe and enjoyable conditions,” the plan says. It continues, “Visitors are unaware of hazardous ocean conditions, which has resulted in ocean rescues and drowning incidents. Increase in visitation, and specifically the use of fireworks, presents increased fire risks. Congestion along Highway 1, particularly on weekends during the high season, has led to an increase in vehicle collisions and hazardous conditions for bicyclists and pedestrians.” 

The plan called for additional infrastructure on the stretch, but also for additional funding for emergency response, law enforcement and other public services needed to ensure a safe and rewarding visitor experience.

What happened to the plan? How much was implemented or ignored?

Government staff and elected leaders could not tell me.

And there’s another layer of government coordination.

County staff say a separate multiagency group facilitated by the City of Santa Cruz handles coastal safety issues, including emergency response and drowning prevention.

That group includes the county’s Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience (OR3), State Parks, local fire agencies, coastal cities and other regional partners. Its work includes coordinating rescue and fatality data, updating the coastal incident response plan, improving public warnings and exploring funding opportunities.

With so many agencies and organizations involved, who is responsible for making sure recurring dangers lead to lasting safety improvements?

Far too many families already know the dangers of the North Coast.

In July 2020, Anushri Nair, 19, drowned at Panther Beach after a large wave swept her and her friends from a rock. Her mother, Prithi Nair, later spoke publicly about the beach’s dangers, hoping to spare other families the same loss.

“She was our only child,” she told KTVU. “She was the absolute love of our life.”

Six years later, three more women died at the same beach.

The records also document people swept into the ocean, stranded by tides and trapped on cliffs. Some required helicopter rescues or prolonged efforts to reach them. Responders face steep terrain, limited beach access, powerful surf and sometimes unreliable cell service.

But for me, the records raise a question that goes beyond how quickly rescuers arrive: Why do so many emergencies happen at places where the dangers have long been recognized?

Promoting paradise

Here is one big problem I’ve found: Emergency agencies say they track where people keep getting hurt on the North Coast, but that information isn’t being communicated to the organizations that send visitors there.

A few weeks ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom touted California’s position as the world’s fourth-largest economy. Tourism is a substantial contributor: Visitors spent $158.9 billion statewide in 2025, supporting approximately 1.2 million jobs and generating $13.6 billion in state and local taxes.

Visit Santa Cruz County, the region’s tourism marketing organization, said that more in-state visitors have buoyed tourism locally this year, with a 25.1% increase in revenue per hotel room compared to last year.

So we are good at bringing people to our coast. Keeping them safe once they arrive is a different matter. 

Visit Santa Cruz County promotes the North Coast. Its Davenport webpage calls Panther Beach and Hole in the Wall “havens” for surfers, swimmers, sunbathers and whale watchers.

Another feature, “Secretly Awesome Santa Cruz,” encourages visitors to discover Hole in the Wall, describing the rocky descent from Panther Beach and the sea arch leading to a secluded shoreline.

Social media influencers have also spread photos and videos of once-obscure beaches to audiences far beyond Santa Cruz County.

I asked if anyone worries about safety. The organization says it avoids promoting certain hazardous attractions and would support more safety messaging if government agencies asked.

But its representatives told me they had not received detailed information from agencies about the area’s recurring emergencies.

“We take the lead from government agencies,” said Visit Santa Cruz County Communications Director Christina Glynn, explaining that the organization relies on public officials to decide what safety information to share.

Terence Concannon, CEO of Visit Santa Cruz County, said the organization learns about coastal tragedies through news coverage, not from authorities. It had received no official indication that it should stop directing visitors to Panther Beach.

More visitors, same resources

State Parks officials acknowledged that staffing and equipment have not grown with North Coast visitation. “We have not gotten an allocation for additional resources or additional equipment,” McKenna said.

Instead, the department has increasingly reassigned lifeguards and other personnel from beaches farther south.

North Coast beaches have no permanent lifeguard towers. They depend on mobile patrols, available staff and help from several emergency agencies.

As of early October, McKenna said, a single State Parks peace officer was assigned to the North Coast.

The department has begun evaluating hazardous access trails, including Panther Beach, and reviews its emergency responses for possible improvements. But more staff, equipment and preventive installations would require resources it hasn’t received.

New signs — but will they work?

Luckily, some improvements are underway.

This year,  the county Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience worked with the Regional Transportation Commission and State Parks to install additional warning signs at Panther Beach, Shark Fin Cove and Laguna Creek. The signs identify beach locations and link visitors to information about tides, surf and other hazards.

I talked with Supervisor Justin Cummings, who has served on the California Coastal Commission, and he acknowledged the safety issues on the North Coast. 

“We’re starting with signage, with the hopes that that helps. Only time will tell,” he said.

I’m concerned the signage is not enough.

Research suggests caution about relying on warnings alone. A 2014 Australian study found that only 45% of surveyed beachgoers noticed safety signs, and noticing a sign doesn’t mean someone will avoid dangerous areas. A later review of coastal drowning research found limited evidence that educational interventions work.

Cummings also acknowledged the consequences of making remote beaches easier to visit.

“Here’s the repercussions of improving that access,” he said, emphasizing the need for additional state funding to address the safety challenges.

He said his office is organizing another interagency meeting about the recent emergencies, but did not provide a date. 

Who takes responsibility?

State Sen. John Laird, whose office took part in the original North Coast planning, said he could not identify which safety improvements had been funded through it.

He recalled a longstanding jurisdictional dispute near Davenport Beach, where neither state nor county authorities were policing an area between their boundaries. He did not know whether it had been resolved.

Laird supports more funding and renewed coordination.

“I’m not necessarily volunteering to be the coordinator,” he said, “but I’m volunteering to make sure that if anything needs to be done at the state, it is done.”

Assemblymember Gail Pellerin pointed to California’s budget pressures, including a State Parks deferred maintenance backlog of more than $1 billion.

She supported evaluating locations where deaths and serious injuries repeatedly occur and considering whether barriers, safer trails, additional rescue equipment or other measures could reduce the risks. She suggested a model like Santa Cruz County’s Safe on 17 Task Force, which brings agencies together to analyze crashes and coordinate highway safety improvements.

But when asked who ensures similar reviews happen after coastal deaths, Pellerin did not name a specific agency or required process.

“It’s all of our responsibilities to help reduce the risks,” she said.

My takeaway is this: Five years after officials described the North Coast’s public-safety problems as urgent, numerous agencies and organizations have produced studies, developed plans and coordinated through separate groups addressing coastal access and safety. 

Yet California State Parks still lacks the resources needed to keep pace with growing visitation, and no one has clearly demonstrated who is accountable for turning those efforts into funded improvements that prevent future tragedies.

California has shown how effectively it can attract people to its coastline. It’s disappointing it has yet to demonstrate the same commitment to keeping us safe.

Kevin Norton lives in Santa Cruz and has a background in public health. He welcomes tips, feedback and story ideas at healthysantacruz@gmail.com.