Beach Road is one row of houses on the sand at the south end of Dana Point, on slab foundations behind private seawalls and patios, with the railroad at its back. Since Hurricane Marie's swell on August 28 the row has lost decks, patios, seawall sections and homes; after Tropical Storm Rachel the City's count was seven red-tagged and thirteen yellow-tagged. The seawall and the sand are the coastal engineer's and the City's problem. Everything from the seawall in is ours.
When the sand in front of the wall goes, the sand under the house follows it. A slab on sand loses its bearing at the seaward edge first: new cracks, a floor that is no longer level, doors that bind. The deck that went into the surf on August 28 was undermined the same way.
Every high tide now reaches under the slab. Concrete is porous; seawater pushes up through cracks, joints and the slab edge, leaves a salt crust on the surface, and climbs the bottom plates of the walls. The room feels damp with no rain and no leak.
Where a patio or wall failed, wave run-up reached the lower level directly. Drywall, insulation and framing that took seawater grow mold within days unless they are opened and dried, and the salt stays in whatever is not removed.
Not on the sand? The same higher sea lifts the water table under low-lying streets blocks inland, so a slab can take water from below with no wave in sight. How the groundwater behind the beachfront works →
Dana Point declared a local emergency on August 28, and the State's El Niño emergency of September 21 means an emergency coastal development permit for seawall repair is decided within 24 hours; it lasts 120 days and the follow-up permit still has to be won. Repairing the wall is the coastal engineer's design and the armoring contractor's build. We coordinate with both and document the house while they work.
First red tag. A deck destroyed, and coastal erosion undermined the slab foundation beneath it.
ABC7 · NTDTen homes red-tagged, seven yellow-tagged. Seawalls failed, patios went into the ocean.
ABC7 · CBS Los AngelesAnother home went into the surf; seven red-tagged and thirteen yellow-tagged after Rachel. The houses sit on slabs on sand, and the sand is going.
ABC7The whole coast, dated and sourced →
In this order. Documenting and drying happen the same day; documenting comes first.
If you smell gas, get out and call the gas company from outside. Switch off power to circuits that are wet. Do not enter a red-tagged house; a yellow tag says what you may do.
Close the valve if it is a pipe. If it is the sea or the ground, there is nothing to close; move what you can above the water line and leave the rest in place for the photographs.
Every room, the water line on the walls, the floor, the garage, the contents, the outside of the house and the beach or street. Phone timestamps are fine. Nothing gets dried, moved or thrown out before it is on record.
A pin meter on walls and floors, room by room, written down with the time. If you do not have one, we bring ours; the readings date the damage.
Call your insurer the same day, say you are limiting the damage, and send the photographs. Keep the City's tag notice if there is one. Wave and flood damage is often a flood-policy question; the record matters either way.
Extraction, air movers and dehumidifiers the same day. Wet drywall and insulation that took seawater come out; the salt stays in whatever is left. Do not tear out beyond what has been photographed.
A damp floor with no rain, a salt crust on concrete, doors that bind and new cracks mean the water is under the slab. That is a moisture survey, not a guess, and it is where we start.
Yes, within what the tag allows. We document first: photographs, moisture readings and a moisture map of every floor and wall, dated, before anything is dried or torn out. Then the inside work: emergency dry-out, drainage and a sump to hold the water table under the slab, mold removal, and the envelope repairs. The seawall itself is the coastal engineer's design; we coordinate with that engineer and with the City's building official.
Not necessarily. The sand under the slab and the seawater under the slab do not need a broken wall. The signs are a damp floor with no rain, a white salt crust on concrete, doors that bind, cracks that were not there in August. A moisture survey answers the question in a day.
Dated photographs and video of the water line and of every wet room before drying; moisture readings; the City's tag notice; and a cause-of-loss report that says where the water came from and what it did. We write that report. Wave and flood damage is usually a flood-policy question and many homeowner policies exclude it; the documentation is what the adjuster or your attorney works from either way.
One licensed contractor answers, finds the source, makes the repair and writes the report. Not a call center that passes your job to whoever is nearby.
No photograph of the home leaves the file without written consent. We work through the estate manager, the architect or the family office when that is how the house is run.
Other coasts: Long Beach Peninsula · Newport Beach · Malibu · home
L3 Energy Construction LLC, CSLB #1149191, Southern California coast, Malibu to La Jolla. Water-intrusion practice since 1999 as Hydrotech Construction, including construction-defect expert witness work. Figures in the log are as reported by the linked sources; the reading of what they mean inside a house is ours. Illustrative, not a survey of any property.