DANA POINT, California – Natalie Driessen drove down Beach Road on a mission, past neighbors whose houses fell into the sea and others now scrambling to prevent their property from collapsing next.
She had a video from March that she wanted everyone to see. When she spotted an Orange County supervisor outside what was left of one mangled kitchen and living room, Driessen pulled out her phone to play the clip of the California Coastal Commission — the powerful state agency tasked with preserving beaches — discussing a home in her gated community.
California beaches are considered public beyond a certain high tide line, the commissioners warned, and that waterline was rising. “I wonder,” one of the commissioners said, “how many years before I’m allowed to just pull up a chair — sit in their, you know, front deck porch and watch TV because it’s public land. … I don’t think we’re that far away from this, right?”
Storms and high tides — fueled by a near record-breaking El Niño — have battered the California coast in recent weeks, destroying homes and eroding beaches. The fallout has supercharged years-long tensions between the owners of coveted oceanfront property and the authorities they say aren’t doing enough to protect them.
The damage has intensified a bigger debate playing out around the coast: What can or should be done to save private property in the most vulnerable communities?
#years
She had a video from March that she wanted everyone to see. When she spotted an Orange County supervisor outside what was left of one mangled kitchen and living room, Driessen pulled out her phone to play the clip of the California Coastal Commission — the powerful state agency tasked with preserving beaches — discussing a home in her gated community.
California beaches are considered public beyond a certain high tide line, the commissioners warned, and that waterline was rising. “I wonder,” one of the commissioners said, “how many years before I’m allowed to just pull up a chair — sit in their, you know, front deck porch and watch TV because it’s public land. … I don’t think we’re that far away from this, right?”
Storms and high tides — fueled by a near record-breaking El Niño — have battered the California coast in recent weeks, destroying homes and eroding beaches. The fallout has supercharged years-long tensions between the owners of coveted oceanfront property and the authorities they say aren’t doing enough to protect them.
The damage has intensified a bigger debate playing out around the coast: What can or should be done to save private property in the most vulnerable communities?
#years
6 hours ago
