King tides inundate streets and flood homes and businesses along both US coasts

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — King tides have inundated parts of both U.S. coasts, flooding streets and sending seawater into homes and businesses in beach communities in California, Florida and the Carolinas.

The tides began with the full moon earlier this week and could cause flooding in some areas into the weekend, forecasters said. King tides are caused by the gravitational pull and alignments of the Earth, moon, and sun. They can occur several times a year and last several days.

This week's king tides have been exacerbated by additional factors, forecasters said Wednesday.

In Florida, strong high pressure to the north and low pressure over the Caribbean were causing increased swells, Chris Fisher, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Miami, said.

Along the California coast, the ongoing super El Niño has warmed the ocean, leading to an increased volume of seawater. Another factor was the occurrence of Kelvin waves, a series of pulses of warm water that lift the sea level, said Roger Gass, a meteorologist with the weather service's Bay Area forecast office in Monterey.

This week's king tides, like their name, have definitely been noticeable. Residents didn't need a beach to see the ocean. The ocean came to them.

In Southern California, Stacey Frederick snapped photos and videos of people walking in knee-deep water and paddleboarding on the Pacific Coast Highway outside a coffee shop where she works as rising tides pushed water ashore. Officials shut down traffic on a flooded portion of the four-lane highway, which winds from Orange County up through California.

King tides aren’t new, yet this was unusual, Frederick said.

“It floods a little bit, but never to this point,” said Frederick, 38, who has lived in Huntington Beach for five years.

Record high tides were set this week in Santa Barbara, San Pedro, San Diego and nearby La Jolla, according to the weather service.

In Sunset Beach, the water washed over the three layers of sandbags that Lorraine Friedman, 75, had stacked inside her garage and on the small patio outside her studio apartment. She has lived in the seaside community for nearly three decades and her apartment has flooded only once before, some 20 years ago.

“This is the second day I’ve been flooded — two days — and tomorrow I’ll get flooded again,” she said Wednesday.

In the northern part of the state, minor flooding was expected through Saturday in low-lying areas along shorelines and tidal waterways during peak high tides, the weather service said.

Gass said the coastal flooding generally occurred within 1 1/2 hours before and after high tides, which are peaking 1.9 feet (about a half-meter) above normal in Northern California.

Most of Florida’s Atlantic coast was under flood warnings through early Friday. Street flooding also was reported in South Carolina coastal cities, including Charleston and Myrtle Beach, and rip currents were possible as far north as North Carolina's Outer Banks.

“It’s been a rough beach week,” Fisher said. “We’ve had a high risk of rip currents and some high surf out there. The beach conditions are going to continue to be rough through the weekend. It’s been a good week to stay out of the water and stay away from the beaches.”

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, getting to the multiple waterfront venues at what’s billed as the world’s largest-in-water boat show was tricky, requiring driving through flooded streets next to marinas, hotels and convention centers.

Virginia Key, a barrier island in Miami, saw its highest king tide and the third-highest water level since records were first kept going back three decades, Fisher said.

“The only times we've seen higher was during hurricanes,” Fisher said. “It's historical from a king tide perspective.”

Raby reported from Charleston, West Virginia.

A man surfs through floodwaters in Huntington Beach, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Members of the Deakins family remove floodwater from their garage in Huntington Beach, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Pedestrians walk through a flooded street caused by king tides and heavy rain Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, in North Bay Village, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Sandbags are placed outside a home to protect it from floodwaters in Huntington Beach, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Pedestrians walk through a flooded street caused by king tides and heavy rain in North Bay Village, Fla., Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

H.E. Durbin paddleboards in floodwaters in Huntington Beach, Calif., Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — President Donald Trump called for the criminal prosecution of the Democratic candidate running for Senate in Alaska on Wednesday after revelations that her campaign appeared to be involved in recruiting a candidate with the same name as Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.

The race is among a handful of Senate contests this year expected to determine control of the chamber. Trump had previously directed his Department of Justice to sue to block certification of the Senate race should Democrat Mary Peltola defeat Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan.

“I think they should be prosecuted,” the Republican president said about Peltola and the other Sullivan, responding to questions about a report in The New York Times. He earlier had posted on social media that “Peltola should suffer the Legal and Political consequences for what she has done.”

The newspaper obtained text messages between members of Peltola's campaign discussing recruiting other people with the same name as the two-term Republican. They eventually landed on a retired schoolteacher in the small fishing community of Petersburg named Dan J. Sullivan. He made it through the state's August open primary and is one of four candidates on the ranked vote ballot for next Tuesday's general election.

Dan J. Sullivan has long denied he was running at Democrats’ behest and has said he had no contact with Peltola's campaign: “Zero, none, zilch,” he said in June after announcing his run.

He did not respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday from The Associated Press.

Peltola's campaign, in a statement, said: “Mary got in this race because Alaskans deserve a champion who is fighting to lower their costs and put Alaska first, and no tweet or threat from any DC politician will keep her away from that fight.”

A top state elections official earlier this year ruled Dan J. Sullivan ineligible for the primary ballot, concluding that his declaration of candidacy was filed "with a purpose to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.”

The case went to the Alaska Supreme Court, which ruled he was qualified to run.

Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has endorsed Sullivan and is a longtime friend of Peltola, said in a statement that Alaskans “deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign — what has been revealed is a pattern of lies and coverups and a culture of deception that belongs nowhere in our elections or among our elected officials.”

Nate Adams, a spokesperson for Sen. Sullivan’s campaign, said: “Mary Peltola, her campaign and her senior advisers colluded with the DSCC, national Democrat lawyers and Alaska Democrat operatives to recruit candidates to deliberately confuse and deceive voters.”

Peltola's campaign, in a statement Wednesday, said it “has no involvement with either Sullivan campaign.” They issued a similar statement in June after Sen. Sullivan questioned the other Sullivan's candidacy.

Democrats, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, have repeatedly denied that they were involved in any campaign trick.

“The DSCC is not involved with Dan J. Sullivan," the organization said in a statement Wednesday. The Times report said DSCC staffers were on texts with the Peltola campaign discussing the second Sullivan.

Legal experts said the report about Democrats appearing to recruit Dan J. Sullivan as a way to potentially confuse voters will have no impact on a lawsuit filed recently by the U.S. Department of Justice. President Donald Trump directed the department to file the lawsuit, which seeks to halt certification of a possible Peltola win, citing the presence of the second Dan Sullivan on the ballot.

“It’s a dirty campaign trick, and it’s good reason the Alaska Supreme Court should have permitted the candidate to have been removed from the ballot,” said Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor. “But now it’s in the hands of the voters, not litigation.”

It's not the first time a candidate's appearance on the Alaska ballot has been questioned. In 2024, the state Democratic Party sued to keep off the U.S. House ballot a man with no apparent ties to the state who is serving time in a federal prison in New York. A divided state Supreme Court allowed him to remain on the ballot. The man is running again this year, also in the House race, and is on the Nov. 3 ranked vote general election ballot.

The Times story about the recruitment of Dan J. Sullivan is based partly on interviews with Peltola's former campaign manager, Elisa Rios, who was fired in August amid a campaign shake-up. The newspaper said she tried to retract her comments last week. Efforts by the AP to reach Rios were not immediately successful.

As of Monday, 46,204 ballots had already been cast in Alaska, according to AP data. Sen. Sullivan is listed on the ballot as the Republican incumbent. The other Sullivan is listed as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., with no party affiliation.

Riccardi reported from Denver.

FILE - Dan Sullivan, a candidate in Alaska's U.S. Senate race who shares a name with the incumbent seeking reelection, talks in front of a welcome sign near downtown Petersburg, Alaska, July 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer, File)

In this photo shot with a smart phone, Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan poses ahead of a debate with Democrat Mary Peltola in Alaska's Senate race, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer)

In this photo shot with a smart phone, Democrat Mary Peltola smiles ahead of a debate with Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska's Senate race, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026, in Anchorage, Alaska. (AP Photo/Becky Bohrer)

A sample election ballot is displayed in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday, Oct. 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Haven Daley)