Dune Bugged

Call it “Day of the Dunes” or “Attack of the Shifting Sands.”

In a scene that would warm the heart of movie schlockmeister Roger Corman, rogue sand dunes up to 10 feet high terrorize the innocent inhabitants of Hollywood Beach and Silver Strand Beach in late winter and early spring. It’s a never-ending battle that pits man against the elements, bulldozer versus beach.

Swept by the wind, sand piles against fences, covers stairways and blankets roads.

Ventura County spends about $30,000 a year pushing the relentless sand back to the ocean and away from paths that provide access to two miles of public beach near Oxnard. Homeowners organize annual sand block parties in a show of orchestrated, if ultimately futile, resistance to the rampaging grit. Motorists must occasionally veer into the oncoming lane to avoid a sizable drift.

“I pay $400 or $500 a year to get a guy with a small bulldozer to push the sand back to the beach,” said Ocean Drive resident R. G. Roberts, 84, a sand war veteran who has literally gone against the grains since building his surfside home in 1959. “In years gone by, I bet I’ve had 100 pounds of sand on the roof. You have to get up there and shovel it off.”

But the sand always returns. The rickety fence surrounding Roberts’ yard is tottering testimony to the years of struggle between sand and his slice of civilization. His ocean view is sometimes partially obscured as sand builds up around his lot.

Roberts gestures at a neighboring house whose owner has long since surrendered to the sand and allowed it to envelop an exterior staircase.

“You can sand ski down his stairway,” Roberts said. “The sand kind of wears you out.”

Still, residents concede that it’s tough for people to feel much empathy for them. These folks live next to the ocean in a neighborhood where beachfront “tear-downs”--most buyers don’t bother to fix them up--start at about $700,000. And this is sand, after all, not Chicago snow.

Frank Anderson, 54, harbor manager for Ventura County, who supervises a crew of six maintenance workers, chuckles when asked about the constantly encroaching sand. The Arkansas native enjoys gently taunting his Midwest relatives in the depths of winter.

“At times when they’re below zero and the snow is over the fence, up against the house, I send them pictures,” he said. “It’s much nicer to shovel sand in a T-shirt than shovel snow in a parka when the wind-chill factor is around zero.”

There’s no foreseeable solution. The crown of the beach is as much as six feet above the road’s elevation, which encourages drifting sand, but also serves to protect the pricey property from the waves. Oceanfront homes block most of the sand from traveling farther inland, but the stuff piles up on undeveloped lots and invades nearby roads as it funnels through streets that end at the beach.

Depending on the wind’s ferocity, work crews must diligently repel the sand. That has occurred three times this year already in some spots, according to bulldozer driver Gene Kirkwood.

Real estate broker Hadley Hendrick, who has lived a short walk from his Hollywood Beach office for 19 years, said those in the know will design a home to minimize the wind’s effect. The correct contours and proper angle in relation to the ocean winds reduce the maintenance schedule necessary to remove unwanted sand, he said.

Still, sand is simply a fact of life, said Hendrick, who organizes what he calls a sand block party every year, when residents wield brooms and shovels in an effort to clean up the neighborhood.

But no wild, roving dune has yet gobbled up any unfortunate sports car without a trace, he said. And Hendrick certainly doesn’t talk about the pesky stuff to potential purchasers.

“I don’t tell them it rains, either,’ he said. “It’s no big deal having sand. That’s life at the beach.”