Four buildings in San Clemente, California, were evacuated on Wednesday after the seaside cliff on which they stand began collapsing in a landslide caused by recent heavy rains.
Images of the buildings — three apartment buildings and another dwelling — showed that the courtyard of one of the buildings, with a swimming pool in back, had crumbled down the cliff toward the Amtrak rail line, which runs along the coast of the Pacific Ocean from Orange County to San Diego.
San Clemente – Three apartment structures in the 1500 block of Buena Vista have been evacuated due to a landslide in the rear. Firefighters arrived and began a search of the homes to ensure everyone was evacuated. The call came in at 8:18 AM.
See below for closure information. pic.twitter.com/dKjITErR4A
— OCFA PIO (@OCFireAuthority) March 15, 2023
Local ABC affiliate KABC-7 reported:
Four apartment buildings in San Clemente were evacuated Wednesday due to a landslide that left the back of the structures in danger of crumbling down the hillside.
It happened in the 1500 block of Buena Vista just after 8 a.m. Crews with the Orange County Fire Authority were quickly rushed to the scene where they conducted a full search of the buildings and evacuated all residents. All buildings have since been yellow-tagged.
OOCFA says the landslide made it all the way to the train tracks below, taking it with it part of someone’s backyard and patio furniture.
Landslides were already a problem in the San Clemente area before the rainy winter. Amtrak suspended service for several months late last year because of rockslides that imperiled the train tracks. The repair work cut off rail service between Los Angeles and San Diego.
With heavy winter storms that began around Christmas and have continued ever since, the erosion-prone cliffs of the Southern California coastline have been more vulnerable than usual. In Los Angeles, rocks falling on roads such as Sunset Boulevard and the Pacific Coast Highway snarled traffic on Wednesday.
A crew clears rocks and debris from the California Incline in Santa Monica, California, during rain on Wednesday, March 15, 2023. (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News)
Rocks litter Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles after rockslides due to heavy rains, Wednesday, March 15, 2023. (Joel Pollak / Breitbart News)
The rainfall has allowed local authorities in Southern California to lift water restrictions that were put in place last year. But in the nearby mountains of San Bernardino County, it fell as heavy snow, trapping some residents in their homes for weeks. Further north, the weight of accumulated snow in Lake Tahoe has crushed roofs — and more rain and snow are expected next week with the arrival of the season’s 12th “atmospheric river.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) met Wednesday with local leaders and first responders in the town of Pajaro, where a levee broke several days ago, causing flooding. He returned last Sunday from a personal trip to Mexico, which he undertook the day after declaring a state of emergency for 13 counties that had already been hit by blizzards.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
This post has been updated to reflect that only three of the buildings appear to be apartment buildings.
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