A chunk of rock fell from the Shell Beach cliffside over the weekend, and residents worry it may not be the last during this years El Nio.
Robert Greco and his wife walk the same path near the Chapman Estate twice a week.
Right now, the walkway to the ocean is eroded and underneath it, and it doesn’t look good,” Greco said.
On Monday morning, they had to take a detour after part of their path fell into the ocean.
Greco said he’s disappointed that Eldwayer Ocean Park is in jeopardy because it could have been prevented.
They could have done this a long time ago, but they didn’t,” Greco said. “I’m not sure whether it’s finances or whether it’s let the ocean do what it wants to do, but it’s sad.”
City Manager Silas Clarke said its a combination of the two. While the City has looked at seawalls, they need to take a balanced approach to the situation.
Seawalls are extremely expensive, and we need grant dollars to help with that,” Clarke said. “So we are supportive of seawalls in certain sections but there are certain sections of this bluff that are just going to continue to fall away. We need to manage that as best as we can.
Coastal erosion is common in Shell Beach and other beach communities, but more storms from this stronger-than-average El Nio speed up the process.
KSBY Meteorologist Vivian Rennie, who has been covering this year’s El Nio, said, More storms produce more waves, and waves just create erosion across our coasts. The second side of things is with our thermal expansion of the water table. With the Kelvin wave that we saw, the water comes up higher on the bluffs to areas that don’t typically see water hitting them, and that will cause erosion to those sections as well.
Stan Hamrick, another walker, said he’s seen worse erosion in other parts of the state.
“It’s not as bad as it is in Southern California where they’ve had houses that have been damaged,” Hamrick said. “So we’re actually quite fortunate so far that we haven’t had any serious structural damage.”
The city has worked with Ready SLO to help get information out to residents about the risks these storms pose.
Clarke said the city is working on ways to preserve parts of the coastline and the section that just fell is on the list for repairs.
This sidewalk is already contracted out to be removed,” Clarke said. “We will be replacing the sidewalk section with, actually, granite composite just to help with drainage and hopefully alleviate, you know, further retreat of this bluff.