Drenched but undaunted, workers at Duke’s Malibu are feverishly repairing the damage to walls and floors caused by the March 20 flood. They are putting in scuppers in the Barefoot Bar and getting Duke’s in ship shape and Bristol fashion in anticipation of an April 8 reopening.

“Duke’s has been open for 15 years, and we’d had some mud and flooding in the parking lot, but never anything like this,” said Josh Morgan, the restaurant’s general manager. “From what I have heard, the last time this restaurant flooded was 38 years ago.”

Los Angeles got a cold shower from spring rains that dumped as much as seven inches over a two-day period. The deluge brought a fair share of abuse to runners in the Los Angeles Marathon on March 20, which was a Sunday. And around Malibu, it just rained and rained all day, and gave Malibu citizens a double excuse to stay home, stay indoors and stay out of trouble.

Morgan thought it would be a slower Sunday than usual.

“All day long, it was sideways rain and the marathon usually slows things down too,” he said.

Looking out the window, the ocean was a brown, murky mess. Morgan knew he wasn’t missing any surf, so that was good, and the day went smooth. Malibu had been dumped on before, and while the rain that day was a little more intense than usual, Morgan finished his shift at 5 p.m., and headed home.

“Before I left, I checked the creek and checked all the drainage, and everything was fine,” he said. “When I left at 5, it was dumping. Never seen it raining so hard. Driving up the coast was just crazy. I just got a new GMC, and it has this self-correct braking, and it was hydroplaning and doing things I hadn’t felt before. I called my buddy, and I’m like, ‘What is going on with this truck?’”

About a half hour after Morgan left Duke’s, all hell broke loose (take a look at the YouTube videos attached to this article). Duke’s is directly at the bottom of Las Flores Canyon Road, which apparently acted as a conduit for the all-day deluge. At around 5:30, there were two pulses of water that came across Pacific Coast Highway, up and over barricades that had been placed between the Duke’s parking lot and PCH.

“Our tenant upstairs videoed all of it,” Morgan said. “The water came in at the corner close to where Cosentino’s is—where our dumpster is. And then it split in our parking lot.”

Rather than flood through the front door like you might suspect—and turn the smiles of the greeter girls into frowns of concern—the flow of water divided in the parking lot. One stream went running toward the banquet room and the other went down to the other end, and flooded into the Barefoot Bar.

Had the Barefoot Bar been built with scuppers to drain the water out and onto the riprap and down to the ocean, this would have been only a minor inconvenience. But the Barefoot Bar is separated by bulletproof glass, which is difficult to break.

The scene went from uncomfortable to potentially dangerous as the water backed up in the Barefoot Bar, and then flooded back through the bar and into the dining room.

“Chris Hansen is a firefighter at Camp 8, up the hill at the top of Las Flores,” Morgan said. “I’m not sure what Chris’ official title is, but I think he runs that camp. His son works here, and he happened to be here that day when the flood hit. They live just down the street, and his wife calls, ‘Honey, get home, our house is flooding.’  He’s on his way out of here, and sees water starting to come though the entry way to the parking lot. He comes back in, and says to Assistant General Manager Jimmy Chavez, ‘Hey Jimmy, you’d better call 911. This is going to get bad.’”

The water came in two waves within a couple of minutes of each other. The second wave did the most damage, backing up in the Barefoot Bar, and spreading into the restaurant as diners jumped up on tables and the staff scrambled.

“I was home when it was happening,” Morgan said. “But guys were calling me. They were saying, ‘We’ve got to break the windows!’ Cameron Robinson works here, and his dad Brian is a big, buff guy, right? He’s like 6 foot, 4 inches tall. And he sees our managers trying to break the windows in the Barefoot Bar with a patio chair. So Brian Robinson grabs a huge steel pole, and was working on the windows. The Camp 8 crew had a huge pick axe that was able to break six of the windows to allow drainage.”

As this was happening, there were about 70 guests in the bars and having dinner. They realized it was serious when there was water under their feet.

“The patrons were amazing at how cool they were,” Morgan said. “Some of them took off their shoes, put plastic bags on their feet and waded out into the parking lot. Duke’s bought all their dinners, and our staff made sure they got into the parking lot. The valets got their cars out, and even though the parking lot was barricaded and water was flooded through, we managed to get everyone out of there.”

On a Thursday, about nine days after the flood, Morgan was on the job, talking to workers repairing the damage, then going up to his office. It was loaded with surfboards, signs, photos and other flotsam and jetsam that had once lined the walls of Dukes, and would be lining them again soon.

Morgan’s office commands a view over the Santa Monica Bay and also the right point that sometimes breaks in front of Duke’s.

“I was in here the next day, and the surf was firing,” Morgan said. “It was clean and a couple of feet overhead. I had never seen the surf that good, and there was no one here. I didn’t have my stuff, and I had other things to do. But man …”

Duke’s will rise from this much cleaner, better and with scuppers. Walking out of the restaurant to the parking lot and chatting to the repair crews and the staff, Morgan passed a small plastic-covered statue of the restaurant’s namesake, Duke Kahanamoku.

“Come feel the Aloha Spirit on Friday night, April 8,” Morgan said.  “We'll be celebrating the local community with Hawaiian strolling musicians, a new featured drink called the ‘Storm Drain’ and a wine by the glass special from Semler/Saddlerock Vineyards.  Thanks for the community’s support through all of this.  We'll also be having a reopening party in our Moana Room featuring The Roman Helmets in the near future."