Fourteen storm damage sites now stretch from Mugu Rock to Santa Monica
KBUU counts 14 active coastal repair and hazard zones, from crumbled PCH shoulders to landslides and washed-out beaches.
By Hans Laetz
If KBUU News has lately been sounding like a whole litany of storm damage, it has been. We count 14 items of concern right now between Mugu Rock and Santa Monica.
At west PCH at the giant sand dune, the highway remains just above the high tide level and subject to wave action on the pavement. The eastbound shoulder is still crumbled. No repairs have yet been announced.
On Pacific Coast Highway at Deer Creek, there's a slope failure below the highway. Caltrans is bringing in rocks from Ojai as we speak. Traffic gets stopped frequently by flaggers to allow rock unloading and placement.
On PCH at County Line Beach, about a half mile west of Mulholland, there's another rock failure — an embankment being replaced below the highway. K-rail is up there.
We told you about the 31 houses red-tagged since Labor Day at La Chusa Beach.
At Westward Beach, Beaches and Harbors is armoring another 200 feet of roadway at that washed-out beach. Day and night construction apparently is suspended due to the high waves.
On the eastern side of Point Dume, on Little Dume Beach, two major landslides have caused the cliff to collapse below private property onto the beach.
At Escondido Beach just east of Geoffrey's Restaurant, there's some sort of erosion problem. We observed cement trucks dropping loads of their cement at the end of the private road over the weekend.
At Malibu Lagoon, the additional erosion we told you about at Adamson House.
On Malibu Creek, we told you about the problems at Serra Retreat, where steps are being announced Monday to try to address that.
At 20003 Pacific Coast Highway at Carbon Canyon, the slope failure has repeatedly been vexing Caltrans engineers. Their repair of the damaged vertical wooden I-beam bulkhead structure washed out on Labor Day. That's an immediate threat.
Just east of Las Flores Canyon, the vertical secant wall that was being constructed by Caltrans before the recent waves — work continues there as Caltrans tries to put rocks there to prevent further damage.
At Tuna Beach, emergency repairs of the embankment below the highway continue.
At Ratner Beach, they're closing the highway eastbound — two lanes are closing at night, one lane only in both directions — as they try to replace the washed-out beach embankment.
At Porto Marina, the retaining wall replacement continues.
The major collapse of the hillside at the Tramonto landslide — plans for that have yet to be announced, but the danger remains there - as it has for 50 or 60 years.
Comments (1)
Thank you for the summary. For city revenue, daily commuters, and rebuilders, the Tramonto slide is the largest risk as no physical actin is happening nor planned to deal with excessive rain forecast this year. When the slide happened that caused the current lane shift and K rail, it was a significant inconvenience. When the slide occurs in the future it will be reduced from 4 lanes to 2, and most likely a multi-month if not longer complete road closure. When the slide happened it was stated Caltrans could not take action because it was private property and they could not get with the owner to address the situation. Times have changed - Caltrans has taken emergency actions to protect PCH. They have made it clear they can gain access to private property to do what must be done to protect the road; whether the owner likes it or not. SO, the same goes at the Tramonto slide area. Protect the road as we need the majory artery open AND not to wait for a larger emergency. It also has come to light the land owner they could not get ahold of to take action is actually LA County. You can’t make this stuff up. The very agencies that are charged with being proactive about our needs and basic services. Sound familiar? Now studies have been initiated to gauge what can be done. The study will be a year off at least. We need action now.