SF, CA - The Eroding Cliffs and The Silver Hydrant

Gary and I have been wondering as we walk through Pacifica, why there aren’t more very expensive homes on the ocean front as there are in many other areas. Usually on the ocean front you’ll see large homes, expensive condo developments, expensive restaurants, hotels, etc. Here, there are a few very un-cared-for homes, quite a few apartments and not much else. There is no development.

Firstly, there are very dangerous rep tides which make swimming prohibitive.

But there is a second and graver problem: the coastline is moving inexorably inward.

As I have mentioned before, our own RV Resort has had its problems with the coast. Since it is all sand, it erodes as the waves hit it. Every wave, every tide, every storm does its own little bit of damage and bits of coastal sand disappears. Then there are those times when huge chunks of the shoreline disappear as happened in our resort shortly before we arrived here. You can see these pictures on 4/2.

Today, we walked along the coast northward and found even more devestating photos of the destruction of Mother Nature. Here is a photo which will explain it all. Here is a sand cliff next to the ocean. It is slowly eroding and you can see the corner of an apartment home up at the top.

and there are still people living this building. We saw a woman out doing some landscaping today in front of her apartment as we walked by. Here are some of the other apartments in this complex. Both of these are condemned.

At one time they had put some cement covering on the cliff and had bolted it into the sand but you can see what happened to the covering and those rusted sections are where the bolts were. I guess we now know why there are no large expensive extates on the Pacifica cliffs. There are some smaller homes along the cliffs but these are in pretty poor repair since the owners probably see no need to upgrade them with the cliff eroding every day.

Who cleans them up when they fall? Whose liability are they?

On another note, we have also been astounded by the prices of the homes around here. Granted this is California and these face the ocean which is on this side of the purple ground cover but I just can’t see how these homes can be worth what they want to sell. Here is one that is valued at $359,000.

And here is one next door to it, a bit bigger, and worth 389,000.

We saw a home today, on a street perpendicular to the ocean, with one bedroom, one bath, a living room and a kitchen in its 752 square feet, selling for $379,000.

BIG NEWS, we found out today that the Golden Fire Hydrant was repainted in the annual celebration of its victory over the fires that swept south after the 1906 earthquake in SF. Guess what!? They painted the fire hydrant in silver not gold. Seems the head of the Historical Society bought a can of ‘metallic finish’ RUST-OLEUM with a gold cap. Since they celebrate the correct time of the fire’s conquering, they paint the hydrant at dawn and no one noticed the mistake in the darkness. Untll the sun came up. oops.

Luckily, a local volunteer bought the right color and has already re-painted it gold.

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