‘A huge milestone’: Rebuilding of nature center at Huntington Beach State Park begins
Over the noise of cicadas at Huntington Beach State Park is a new noise — construction machines and workers installing pilings.
The park is rebuilding its Nature Center that was struck by lightning in 2016, causing major damage and killing dozens of animals.
Opening in the spring, the center is already taking reservations for field trips and has raised about $120,000 from the community for the exhibit out of a total exhibit cost of $187,000. The entire rebuilding project is costing $1.2 million.
“The day the building burned was a huge public-grieving process,” said HBSP manager Brenda Magers. “This is a huge milestone ... I’m just looking forward to opening the doors and seeing people come in.”
The center will exhibit maritime, salt marsh, dune and ocean habitats, have space for public programming, baby alligators, snakes and a touch tank. Magers said the building will be similar to the previous center with the same blueprint featuring 4,500 square feet.
The delay in rebuilding was due to three major hurricanes and wildfires in the Upstate. Mager said the state park department had to divert its services to recovery efforts.
More than 20 animals were killed — a stingray, horseshoe crab, jelly fish, alligators, turtles, snakes, a lizard, frogs, salamander and marine animals — when the original center was destroyed by a fire caused by lightning. It took fire crews about two hours to put of the fire, which was called in about 2:34 a.m. in July 2016.
This story was originally published July 23, 2019 at 1:39 PM.
