A Little Too Close to the Water

the structures are all yellow tagged now, there is no chance for salvage....just grab your stuff and go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7eGj4TTS-k

its been known forever that ocean bluffs get gobbled up by the sea eventually.......but the money is so good when the livingroom view is so spectacular.....for a few years

BEAUTIFUL, BREATHTAKING OCEAN VIEWS.

PRICE REDUCED.

HURRY, THESE WON'T LAST LONG AT ANY PRICE!!!!

The people across the street must be thrilled.

The coast near where I live has already lost several houses this way.

what about people who rebuild a million dollar home in a canyon after a firestorm whips through and destroys everything?

With the houses near me, at the time of building in the 1930s they were several hundred yards from the cliff. I guess nobody anticipated the rate of erosion.

I feel exactly the same about housing on low lying land near to rivers.

Only the house my parents bought when I was 6 months old, was not on a hill!!

Its the first thing I check out using a good local map......its not difficult......

Back in 2011 we had a record breaking flood here and the whole time the flood was going the primary talk was that new local laws and regulations would be put in place to keep anyone from rebuilding let alone building new structures in the affected flood zone and the river channel would be completely redone to handle far more flood capacity than it could before.

Interesting thing was within a year construction in the floodplain of all new never before occupied land hit the ground running and never let up since.

Apparently the idea of turning it all into parks and farm land like had been proposed during the flood was not deemed profitable enough.

As for reworking the river channel to handle a similar flood, Meh. Sorry we can't do that. We spent all our money building new houses and businesses in the floodplain so we can't afford to fix the river now.

Kinda like what I was say'n in my last post #18, huh?

No. The idea that this is some how an existential risk to mankind that deserves serious attention is silly.

Katrina was bad, right? Yet far more people die in the US every month (reliably) from automobile accidents than died in total from Katrina (and how often does a Katrina occur). Far more dangerous to use your own vehicle vice public transportation than it is to live on the water, yet the clamour about that somehow absent.

Populations living at low elevations or next to the water isn't a result of whimsical fancy. There are numerous reasons that living near the water is very important for modern society. Waterways provide important and efficient means of transport. Fishing is also extremely important, providing protein to the diets of much of the world at much lower impact than land raised meat.

If that is greed, then I am all for greed. Living in close proximity to the water is huge benefit to civilization, not a threat to it.

Water is a necessity to all living things on earth, no doubt. Greed is when you make the choice to buy or rent where you choose then whine about mother nature reclaiming the property. Those people that chose to move in those apartments/ condo's didn't buy or rent because of a need to fish. They are there because of they could afford the spectacular view. There was an interview the other day on a local station saying, "she bought the place a week ago, didn't even move in yet, and it got red tagged." Mind you, for 2 years now, the City of Pacifica has known about the unstable cliff and has made attempts to ratify the problem. Last winter is when Pacifica was put in the spot light and the crumbling cliffs, but yet they still allowed people move in. Why- Greed, all the more tax revenue for the City of Pacifica.

And, guess what? Like Katrina and Super Storm Sandy, Taxpayers are going to be the one's picking up the bill.

And, what's really sad is the fact that there are people in New Orleans still living in the FEMA temporary trailers with their hands out, whining and wanting more money for the choice they made to live 90 feet (27.4 meters) below sea level.

March 11 2011 you didn't hear the Japanese people whining about being hit by a major earthquake and followed up by a "Biblical" Tsunami. They didn't whine because- they make their living by fishing in the ocean and needed to live close to the source. That is not done out greed but out of necessity. And, they lost not only entire communities but families too.

Now that I've touched on the three subjects (women, politics and religion) that I do not discuss in a bar (pub) or in an open forum, I'm done.

You can have your soapbox back

You have a different definition of greed than I do, if you believe renting a waterfront property qualifies as such.

A lot of the economy of New Orleans (and Louisiana as a whole) is based on or a derivative of business that deal with the water; fishing, shipping, offshore oil, etc. Yes there is a tourist industry, but even that is insufficient to claim some disconnect.

If you have.a problem with federal bailouts (I know I do) then perhaps your ire would be better focused in that direction.

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I did hear a lot of complaints after the tsunami, all through interpreters. Perhaps if my Japanese were better I would have heard even more. People whine, but that is not a good reason to suggest everyone live at least 500 ft abover sea level.

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At any rate, if you don't like whining, take some action; be the change you want to see in the world.

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As for '...There was an interview the other day on a local station saying, "she bought the place a week ago, didn't even move in yet, and it got red tagged." ...

', that is odd.

There are numerous disclosures required that should have been made her aware. Obtaining funding would likely be impossible unless there was fraud (which happens at higher elevations too).

If she bought the place for cash, that is her own fault, but it is quite a stretch to suggest that makes her somehow greedy.

Wait. So did the government build all the new residences and business in the floodplain, or were private investors suggesting they would fund the channel improvement? Neither of those seem typical.

Why would building houses and residences deplete funds needed to work on the channel? If anything it seems like the opposite would be true, i.e. large tax base with which to repay bonds.

I concur. When I boughtthis place, the first thing I looked at was drainage. There is a creek about 100 yds from my house---- and 50 feet down. If it floods this high, I want an ark!

LOL!!

Thats well put, I agree completely.....but we might be thought to be a bit "odd" for that (which I can live with!!), until floods occur.

After WW2, to give people work, they "straightened" many rivers and streams here in Germany.

The main effects are felt by the larger towns on the big rivers, because (stupidly) the effect was to "rush" rainwater into the big rivers and cause flooding. Whether or not this is a similar problem that the UK has had I cannot say.....

Flooding that had not been able to happen before because water got "stored" on farmland, plus the rivers and streams meandered around, slowing the flow, making interesting deeps and shallows for wildlife and fishermen......all gone into a straight line rush of water.

Some areas, Bayern for example, are putting in obstructions to slow waters down. They did it a few years ago near to where I live (Hessen), it looks awful and does not do a good job. In winter the water is still going too fast and deep over the obstructions, in summer grass grows in the rivers because water level are too low.

Too little, too late.....and too costly.....

It's been said that the locals think the U.S. Army Corps is the reason this is happening because they built a Jetty at Pillar Point Harbor that was built in the late 1950s, the outer jetty has led to the degradation of nearby beaches by trapping sand in the harbor. Without the natural deposit of material, beaches and the coast erode more quickly.

The only thing about this that surprises me is that the local government didn't condemn them a year ago and tear them down. I'm wondering why they're just letting all those buildings fall into the ocean.

[Local government official in behind-closed-door conference] "No, no, let's not condemn them houses. Why miss out on collectin' them taxes until they fall in the drink? When they finally do collapse, we'll just fine them people for littering up the ocean and charge 'em for the cleanup. That's what insurance is all about, ain't it?"

There's a reason why they call that peculiar area "Lands End" Several of the apartment buildings were condemned last year and and some major bucks $$$ spent to try and stabilize the cliff with rods and slurry along with rip-rap at the base.

If Mother Nature wants to take it back, she will, with no questions asked.

One of my arguments about a catastrophic outcome for mankind due to global climate change, is that people are far more adaptable and intelligent than animals and will move to where conditions are safer for life, and engineer ways to avoid any damaging effect from it. Seeing this picture destroys my belief in that principle.

Engineered solutions are a possibility. Regarding the homes near me that have been lost (and those that continue to be threatened), sea defenses are possible but the local authority have decided to "let nature take it's course".

You don't think the people have already moved out of those houses?

Oh they are probably out of there by now, but how much did they lose on this venture? I think they were too stupid to know building there had a guaranteed outcome, not to their benefit. Most of California is a probable disaster zone, yet we continue to build there. On a similar sad note, my family went right back in after Agnes in 1972 and rebuilt what a flood had just destroyed. I'm out of there, but still waiting for the next big flood to destroy "home" again. Perhaps we don't have the sense that I thought humans had to get out of a dangerous residential or commercial area, so that when the oceans rise 3' as predicted, we will have many the many predicted disasters.

The problem with man kind is self indulgent and greed as simple as it may be.

I kinda like Aristotle's view of self indulgent, "The self-indulgent man craves for all pleasant things... and is led by his appetite to choose these at the cost of everything else." And as far as "Greed", that will be man-kind undoing.

'...how much did they lose on this venture?'

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Sure some individuals had losses, but attempt to insure against that possibility at peril to us all (Ever heard "nothing ventured, nothing gained"? 'Venture' entails risk, remove that and remote the possibility of gain) .

On whole losses are unlikely. More likely is that in total more was added to the economy than removed even with total loss of the property. Profits on cost of improvements and maintenance on those improvements plus taxes paid over the life of those structures probably greatly exceeds the original land cost plus depreciated cost of materials.

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There is nowhere that is safe from all hazards. People are indeed able to adapt to changing surroundings. Our predictive skills are also far from perfect, though we sometimes imagine otherwise in retrospect. It is also far less common now for people to live in the same place as several generations of ancestors.

As such, there is no need for people to scurry to wherever they suspect the same residence may be occupied for several hundred years.

kinda late to drop a few caissons at the shore....

What kills me is, all their "rain gutters" didn't run out to the street, but out over the cliff!! For that pretty waterfall effect

I grew up in a hilly area of Cali., Rolling Hills Estates. to battle fire and water you saw iceplant and ivy everywhere. good stuff for sledding

That's called living within your environment, all good stuff

bees just love the stuff

Friends,

I grew up in SF, moving out in 1972. That location is less than 1/2 mile from the San Andreas Fault, which runs out into the ocean less than one mile north at Land's End. That area has had slides so often that the old pacific coast highway across it was closed in the 1950's. The fault continues parallel to the coast until it reenters land at Point Reyes.

The slow erosion and eventual collapse of all those houses is 100% certain. What we can't predict is the effect of another strong earthquake on that fault--most likely the sudden collapse of the entire face with all the buildings sliding down into the water in a matter of minutes. That has happened before--look south at Point Firmen (spelling?) in the Long Beach area, which slid in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake.

--JMM

Ferman is a bit different but I enjoyed your comment. I used to work on the highway in the slide area, they "fix" the road almost continuously! it's always active they don't need a shaker to trigger it...neither site is suitable for structures

I now have a name and a known tendency to explain why people build in dangerous areas and refuse to prepare for predicted disasters. PSU news letter today discusses this issue and calls it optimism bias. To paraphrase their newsletter, people, even if they believe disasters are going to occur, refuse to believe they will occur where they are, but believe they will occur far away.

Doesn't bode well for the future if what is predicted weather wise does occur.

Another name for it is 'Darwinism'. Selection for survival at it's most basic.