On September 8 the swell from Hurricane Marie undermined Sea Level Drive: driveways collapsed into a 30-foot sinkhole, a gas line ruptured, five homes were red-tagged and more than 30 people were evacuated. On September 28 Malibu declared a local emergency two weeks before any storm, naming coastal erosion and flooding as the El Niño hazards to prepare for. Malibu's beachfront homes stand on sand, on caissons or on slabs behind seawalls; above them the bluff homes drain toward the sea. Both kinds of house get wet from the ground, and the ground is the part nobody can see.
The void that swallowed a driveway on Sea Level Drive is the same process under a slab on sand: the swell pulls the sand out from under the seaward edge, the slab loses its bearing, and seawater fills the space it leaves at every high tide. Cracks, settlement and a damp floor with no rain are the signs.
A saturated bluff drains through the house below it. Retaining walls, planters and the slab edge on the uphill side take water under pressure after every storm, and the lower level shows it as damp walls, efflorescence and mold. The fix is drainage behind the wall and a membrane, not paint.
Where run-up reached a lower level, the drywall, insulation and framing that took seawater have to be opened and dried within days. Salt stays in whatever is left in place.
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 →
Malibu's emergency declaration and the State's El Niño emergency mean emergency coastal permits for seawall and caisson repair are decided within 24 hours. That work is the coastal and geotechnical engineers' design. Our part is the house: the moisture survey, drainage behind retaining walls and under slabs, dry-out, mold, and the documentation that the adjuster, the City and your attorney will ask for.
Driveways collapsed into a 30-foot sinkhole; a gas line ruptured; five homes red-tagged, more than 30 people evacuated.
CBS Los AngelesLocal emergency declared two weeks before any storm, naming coastal erosion and flooding as the El Niño hazards to prepare for.
LAistThe 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.
The void and the slab share a cause, so the question is fair. Your geotechnical engineer maps the voids; we map the moisture and the water paths under and inside the house and coordinate the two. If the slab is taking seawater, drainage and a sump hold the water table under it while the engineers deal with the ground.
Document from outside and, with the building official's permission, inside; write the cause-of-loss report; and plan the interior repair so it starts the day the tag allows. Nothing is torn out before it is photographed and measured.
Yes, from the other direction. A winter of El Niño rain on a bluff puts water behind every retaining wall and under every uphill slab edge. Lower levels that were dry for years get wet from the hill side. Drainage behind the wall, a membrane and a sump are the usual answer, after the survey says where the water is coming through.
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: Capistrano Beach · Long Beach Peninsula · Newport Beach · 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.