Storms renew concerns about Daly City neighborhood at risk of erosion
With more rain expected in the forecast some communities are being impacted more than others, especially those dealing with coastal erosion, including one Daly City neighborhood.
Westline Drive has been the center of controversy for years.
A sign at the end of the street memorializes 30 Westline Drive, where members of the bands The Mummies and The Phantom Surfers lived in the 1990s.
It was one of the more than 20 homes that were red tagged and eventually demolished in 2000 because of the risk of a landslide.
Ross Stein, co-founder of Temblor, a seismic risk company, says it's because the street is on the San Andreas Fault.
"What a major fault line like the San Andreas does is crush all the rocks within several hundred meters of the fault," said Stein. "Because it's displaced within earthquakes, let's say 10 to 15 feet, over and over again."
Stein says his company has tracked a lot of quake activity in the last month. He believes it's not a matter of if the area will become unlivable, but when.
"That's just a recipe for disaster. Now, that could be a very slow spread out disaster, or if we have another great earthquake like 1906, it could be all at once," said Stein.
Susan Hathaway, lives just yards from where some of the homes were demolished. She's lived in the neighborhood for nearly 40 years and knew the people who lived in the homes that are now gone.
"Lots of older people who have been living here for years and years didn't want to move no matter what they told them about the hill," said Hathaway. "If the hill was going they wanted to go with it."
She says she's not concerned about the recent rain events causing more erosion. What she's most concerned about is the high winds in the area when storms like this come through but she's unsure if she'll leave her home because of it.
"Where would I go? Ya know, I think about it," said Hathaway about potentially moving out of her home. "I'm thinking about looking into senior housing and things like that but I'm not really sure what I'm going to do."
But Stein says eventually she'll have to leave. He believes the only feasible option for people on Westline Drive is managed retreat.
"You can't staple your house to that kind of ground, because that ground is something you can kind of gouge out with your finger nails," said Stein.
Right now, the Daly City doesn't have any plans to remove additional homes in the neighborhood.
