Residents encouraged to flee before it's too late.
San Clemente, California is many things to many people. Richard Milhous Nixon’s favorite retreat. Site of World Surf League Final’s Day. Southernmost town in Orange County. Scene of three Andino generations. Most importantly, though, it is the global home of the surfboard industry. Yes, the “Spanish Village by the Sea,” as it is affectionately called, has long housed extremely important shapers, glassers, sprayers, finishers. Matt Biolos calls San Clemente home and so does Matt Parker. Timmy Patterson and Cole Simler too.
Our wave sliding experience would be vastly different, certainly, if not for the hotbed of progression that is San Clemente, but a terror has presented, in recent days, as the oceanfront Casa Romantica crumbled into the sea as its executive director looked on. Amy Behrens was was enjoying a spring stroll when she heard a low rumble then watched, helpless, as a chunk of the property collapsed into the mighty Pacific.
It was not a singular event. The bluffs fronting this wave-rich stretch of coast have been failing at a wildly increasing rate, knocking out railroad tracks, horrifying wealthy denizens with unobstructed ocean vistas as their million dollar homes teeter on the brink of major insurance claims.
The whole town under a very real threat of disappearing.
San Clemente, though, is not alone in its dire predicament. According to The Los Angeles Times.
In March, a Newport Beach home overlooking the water was demolished after a landslide. Later that month, a landslide in San Clemente prompted evacuation of four oceanfront apartment buildings. Laguna Niguel declared a local emergency last week after soil movement was detected beneath the hilly contours of La Paz Road, prompting officials to close two lanes indefinitely.
Yikes.
But what will a post-San Clemente surfboard industry look like? Where will Biolos et. al. go? Torquay, Australia? Whale Beach? Boca Raton, Florida?
More importantly, I suppose, is who will have them?
Most importantly, what is the cause of this sudden collapse? Global warming?
Discuss.
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Millenia ago someone made comments comparing houses built on sand (or sandstone) and those built on tock.
Hermosa beach Bro !
Who could have guess a sandy hillside near the ocean would erode over the years? A fool and his money will soon part ways
The town shouldn’t have been built up to the extent it is today, full stop. Regardless of the current issues and challenges that are mentioned in the article (and mention is intentional because there is no thesis other than to complain, there is no proposal other than to blame, and there is no analysis of the breadth of inputs that created the current issues other than the feign a concern for his hometown by what, writing a five paragraph fluff piece that will in five months be written faster and more eloquently by ChatGPT 5.0).
There are serious issues at a global scale that cannot be solved with local remedies. Capitalism if unchecked commoditizes and consumes everything. In an attempt to maintain a standard of living that itself was unsustainable from the onset, American corporate socialism capitalism was pushed around the globe. Capitalism doesn’t bail out failed banks or companies. Capitalism doesn’t have a state welfare system for the elite that guarantees their deposits in a regional bank should that bank make poor investment choices or fail to recognize interest rate hikes lead to more interest payments on debt. Capitalism let’s th fail.
We are afraid of what may happen when bad things are looming because we know that the world and America in particular now for the first time in 100 years, is a box of tinder waiting for a match.
Governments and corporations created this mess,we the people tolerated it because we were entertaining ourselves to death with the mass hypnosis created to divert attention.
At the end of the day the time has long passed for local bottom up solutions. The world economic and social order is shifting due to American greed and contempt for the future. Live in the now and you’ll never see what’s coming or what transpired before and so you’re doomed to repeat the past follies and be blindsided by the future doom.
Wait a second….Chaz wrote a story that didn’t include Kelly Slaters name in it?
You chittin’ me?
It’s called erosion ladies and gentlemen
“Panic spreads…….” oh, please. It ALWAYS depends on whatever the market will bear.
This article is silly. San Clemente is going nowhere. Erosion of the cliffs in coastal California are slowly and consistently falling to the beaches. It never stops but its slow and takes very small amount of real estate per our lifetimes. Building right on them, walking on them, heck even laying on the beach under them is ill advised. But in the grand scheme of everything, Californias coast lines are here to stay. Climate change may be hastening this but not at a pace (yet) that is very irregular. These articles are just hit peices that try to convince conservatives who hate California…to believe its not the best place in the world to live, which it is, regardless of its imperfections. Even of his entire property were to fall to the ocean, he would simply buy another property in….San Clemente lol. Surf industry unaffected.
California as a whole is a dumpster fire unless you are at least moderately rich and can insulate yourself in the few remaining enclaves from the zombies in the population centers.
San Clemente doesn’t represent the vast majority of this trashy state.
Ask the leader of the 2% as to why the collapse.
This has been a problem for years on pch. Praying for you broskis, I absolutely love San Clementy i learned to surf at Poaches.❤️
incomin call from GLopes in bend…”to all corn-holers in VTA…I’ll be there!”https://youtu.be/_6wjAngkTgw
tell us about it…
Meh, the dumb cunts that permitted it all back in the day knew what was up. Tax dollars vs smart planning. Fuk’m
Mayhem(s) everywhere you look!
CalLU grad ceremony dude’s name is Manfred Mayhem Montogue…talk of the party!
Nobody in town or the industry is panicking. And no surf products are made even close to the beach. Way to spread dishonest information. You don’t belong here. Maybe you should panic knowing nobody is listening to your disinformation.
Newbies are soooo adorable. My wife is undocumented. Is she still barred from renting in San Clemente? I have dreams of teaching her to surf at t street.
Global warming is the excuse politicians give to avoid actual responsibility for allowing development that blocked natural riverbed sand from being washed to the shores. Lack of sand has accelerated coastal erosion. Mess with nature and nature becomes a mess. One solution would be to add sand back onto the depleted shores
The jetties here in Long Beach (NY) were a big cause of the erosion.
Ironically when the Army Corps looked at removing them after Sandy they said that the least worst option was to build bigger ones.
THUMS
I hate bringing sand to the beach
The Point at Steamer Lane another example. Further Cliff collapse there could truly forever alter that wave.
That would be great , hopefully foreskin dog is sitting at the slot when it happens
“The whole town under a very real threat of disappearing.”
Wotchoo talkin’ ’bout Chazziss ?
It actually happened yeeeeears ago, but unfortunately you’ve misquoted it.
The original statement was…
“The whole town under a very real threat of disappearing, up its own arse.”
Cheers
I hope you have a great day…
Sand Clemente????
No Sand Clemente.
Crumbling houses, Courtney Cornlog vlogs, Kinoa, joint sounds like a shit hole