Post by Logan on Jan 26, 2016 14:34:15 GMT -6
On a stretch of coast between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, rows of apartments sit on cliffs, dangerously close to falling into the Pacific Ocean.
Powerful waves and heavy rains from El Niño storms have accelerated the erosion of the coastal bluffs in Pacifica, Calif., a spectacle widely shared online. On Friday, city officials there declared an emergency. On Monday, they condemned 20 apartments, placing yellow tags on doors and ordering tenants to collect their belongings and leave.
“Recent bluff failures have resulted in unsafe conditions for living space at 310 Esplanade Avenue,” Mike Cully, the chief building official, said in a city announcement. “Cavities in the bluff are forming to the south, west and north of the building and these critically over-steepened slopes are anticipated to fall back to more stable profiles in the next several days.”
The danger lurking in what seems like an idyllic setting was put into stark relief in a video showing people standing on their terraces as a wide chunk of the sandstone bluffs crumbled onto the rocks and shore below. In a few seconds, homes that had sat feet from the cliffs were on the edge or dangling off them.
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Read more: www.nytimes.com/2016/01/27/us/el-nino-storms-put-pacifica-cliff-apartments-at-risk.html