Seven more Malibu fire properties red-tagged as PCH erodes Play

Another seven fire-damaged properties in the Malibu fire zone were red-tagged yesterday. That means a total of 23 former houses are now considered to be immediate hazards — dangers to passersby, to the highway, or to the ocean.

State crews have been working for the past five days at the biggest danger site: a washout beneath PCH just west of Big Rock. Crews working for Caltrans have dumped tons of rock in front of three burned-out houses.

Caltrans has just about finished repairing the sea wall to prevent an imminent roadway collapse on PCH just west of the Big Rock traffic signal.

City building chief Yolanda Bundy told the city council last night that the stability of PCH is getting worse as the summer waves hammer away.

"3-1/2 weeks ago, we found that 16 of those properties were high priority for us, meaning they have severe conditions of coastal erosion, seawall failures and damage extending to PCH," Bundy said. "We added seven more properties to the list that we feel are critical for us just to keep an eye on."

At the site of one burned-down Big Rock beachfront house, water lines and natural gas lines that run parallel to the highway were hanging out in open air, where the white fog line used to be. A brand new gully is slowly making its way under the pavement.

"There was a lot of seawall failures, coastal erosion, slope erosion, drainage issues," Bundy said. "And some areas we have seen a little bit of the embankment of the road being affected. And we brought it up to the attention of our partners at Caltrans."

Water and gas were shut off in those small distribution lines. But two lanes over on PCH, a major natural gas line and a huge water main sit. That water pipe is the only one serving Malibu.

Last night, Caltrans engineer Joon Kang told the council that the 23 red-tagged houses near Big Rock are the only sections of PCH that may need emergency shoring up.

"As far as Caltrans is concerned, these are the only locations that we see that we have some concern," Kang said. "We don't believe there was gonna be any other locations that would be impacted."

But the Caltrans engineer has said that before. Last spring, he said there were no places where washouts might happen. That changed.

"This 20,000 block was kind of a surprise for everybody," Kang said. "Because when we reviewed it in the past, slope was stable. However, because of the seawall lagging that was destroyed by fire, the wave action came in a lot faster. So that's why we repaired the leggings."

Fact check for Caltrans: the landslide at 20000 PCH was plainly visible six months ago. For weeks, anyone walking on the highway's solid white line could see, right beneath their toes, churning white ocean water at the bottom of a very recently carved cliff. It was so obvious that a KBUU reporter put that on the air in June. That's when Caltrans said there was no problem.

As of last night, Kang promised again that Caltrans has things under control.

"We will continue to watch the entire coastline so it is not gonna be, 'oh, gotta wait until something happens,' but we are going to be actively monitoring these 23 locations where we know something has to be done," Kang said.

Joon Kang, the supervising Caltrans engineer who is in charge of PCH, speaking before the city council last night.

The long-term future of Pacific Coast Highway in the fire zone, how it will be protected from the ocean, the future of 320 pieces of private land between the ocean and the road — all very much up in the air. We'll have more on that tomorrow.