Storms Threaten to Pull California’s Coastal Buildings Into The Ocean (Video)

El Niño storms have been battering the California coastline this winter, threatening to pull cliffside homes down into the ocean below.

Dramatic drone footage from Pacifica shows homes and apartment buildings barely clinging to land.

The cliffs in Pacifica, a string of small towns south of San Francisco along California’s craggy coast, have been eroding rapidly this year, forcing officials to evacuate a number of buildings there.

Experts say the problem is caused by a number of natural and man-made factors crashing together: El Niño storms are pounding the shore, development in San Francisco has decreased sediment flowing out of the bay, and sea levels are rising.

Pacifica’s soil is particularly vulnerable—some of those cliffs are made of little more than compacted sand—so they aren’t able to withstand the repeated pummeling of winter storms, according to the LA Times.

Erosion has increased by about 50 percent since the 1970s, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, but it has only recently led to the evacuation of three apartment buildings over the past six years. Residents are just now clearing out of one building, deemed uninhabitable last week (though some vow to stay, despite government orders).

Even more buildings are threatened along Esplanade Avenue, a short road west of the historic Highway 1, which clings to the California coast, and is itself threatened by erosion, officials say.

Now the city is grappling with ways to deal with homes and apartment buildings that have to be abandoned or demolished before the sea takes them.

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