2nd Inspection of Cliff Extends Road Closure

The discovery Thursday of crevices “large enough to fit a man inside” in cliffs overlooking El Camino Real means that a stretch of the road will now be closed for weeks rather than days.

The state Coastal Commission on Thursday granted an emergency permit to repair the cliffs, where serious erosion was recently discovered between Avenida Pico and Camino Capistrano. City officials, who originally predicted that work could be finished and the highway reopened by the weekend, found the instability more serious than was first supposed, City Manager Michael W. Parness said.

“When I went to look at the bluff, it was alarming,” Parness said. “Below, the rocks look flush, but on top you can see daylight between tons of rock and earth.”

City workers noticed the trouble on Sunday. Crews sent to remove rubble on the highway after weekend rains saw that the bluffs above looked unstable.

An engineer hired by the city visited the site the next day and presented Parness with evidence that the cliffs were unsound. The city manager closed the mile-long stretch of highway at 7 p.m. Monday.

Closer inspection of the bluffs also found that they are riddled with rodent holes, City Engineer William Cameron are.

The city plans to make the cliffs safe by breaking up the unstable chunks of rock and earth, some as large as 75 feet across, into smaller pieces, Cameron said.

However, the bluffs were so unstable that engineers were reluctant to bring in heavy machinery, he added.

“The deterioration of the bluffs came quickly, with the rains coming after all the dry weather we’ve been having,” Parness said.

The city is negotiating with several contractors to find one with the best equipment to do the job, Parness said.

The bluffs are part of a 250-acre section of undeveloped land owned by the Lusk Co. of Irvine, which is working with the city to stabilize the area.

Cameron said he would “expect the city’s finances to be impacted minimally.”

San Clemente police are stationed on both sides of the roadblock and are admitting only residents of a mobile home park located on the closed highway.

The closure has snarled traffic at the Avenida Palizada and Avenida Pico exits of Interstate 5, as drivers seek alternate routes. In addition, drivers exiting Avenida Pico confront construction work being done on ramps, and a wait of up to 10 minutes at nearby traffic signals.

“The last couple of days, people have been coming in here steaming,” said John Webright, manager of Aaron Brothers art supply store at 416 Avenida Pico. “It’s pretty much congested all day.”

The closure was the latest in a series that have plagued the coastal community in recent years. The latest occurred in April, when 2,000 cubic yards of mud and rock tumbled onto the highway after a rain. Three cliff-top homes lost part of the their yards in the landslide.