They are probably the pipes that collect run-off to prevent landslides...LOL

I love driving on these roads, but any kid who has had a sandbox knows how stable land like this is.

That is highway 1 I guess. How sad.

Highway 1, or the Pacific Coast Highway, is actually a few miles inland from the area in the photos. The street pictured is named Paseo Del Mar. You can easily find it on Google maps if you search for White Point State Park or the Point Fermin Lighthouse. It WAS a regular walking route for me...sigh...So it goes on our dynamic Earth.

A similar situation occurred down the road, starting in 1929, at a property development area that is now known as the Sunken City. There are plenty of photos of what is left of it online. Film fans may recognize it from a funeral scene in The Big Lebowski.

Highway retainer pipes. They and the guiderail prevented a total blowout.

Storm drain pipes.

They are Cartel drug tunnels

TO: alumette who wrote:

"That is highway 1 I guess."

No, that's Paseo Del Mar in San Pedro. I used to drive that road often because it gives you a beautiful view of the ocean and a lot of hand gliders used to take off from that spot.

This is near the old Fort MacArthur Army Base.

Whatever particular utility is needed. One or more of the usual suspects, domestic water, electrical conduit , gas, CATV, larger ones will be storm drains or sanitary sewer lines. Take your pick. Pretty much whats under all streets.

they are or will soon be ocean fill...dang it i missed all the fun again sigh,

Maybe they will be smarter about how they build the new road. It appears to me the road was built on a big sand bluff (I could be wrong). Sand does not make a very sturdy base (picture a sinkhole in your mind). Maybe why they've had problems before. The new road should be built on top of hard dirt and rock or clay instead of soft, mushy sand. If they don't get it right this will just happen again.

It appears as though everything is built on a foundation of sand? I am not a professional geologist but sand is one of the worst things to build on in an earthquake zone due to the effects of soil liquefaction or erosion which may have led to this in the first place. Here is a home video that I found to visually explain what liquefaction does. http://blogs.agu.org/landslideblog/2011/03/17/liquefaction-from-the-sendai-earthquake/

The days of no regulations and no inspections (or bought off inspectors) - many States still operate this way. Cousin Joe gets the bid to lay the pipe from his Mayor relative, the inspector who got hired because of who he knew, takes his customary bottle of Crown Royal and stamps his approval. Third nephew Bill has the repair contract with the city - never used the rubber joint sealers, leaked for years under the road - most likely there are still miles of this road still waiting to burst. Step brother in law paved the road - and the outcast of the family stole half the guard rails and cashed them in at the recycling center......

And they are all now retired at 52yo and collecting a pension that is more than the Governor receives.

Their children now run the city and will vote to rebuild in the same location....

The problem is geologic. Most of the rock along the coast is sedimentary, sandstone primarily, and is very porous. Rain runoff percolates through and dissolves the underrlying rock until it finally let's go. You see similar conditions on Hwy1 between Big Sur and Morro Bay and also along Devil's Slide betwen Half Moon Bay and Pacifica.

Ishmael: You are so right, unfortunately they do not seem to have the common igneous rock that we do along the coast of Oregon because of the Cascade Mountain Range. Sedimentary rock never makes a good foundation because it erodes way too easily as you already remarked.

All the way up and down the West coast there is an issue with people not being smart enough to know that building on a hillside doesn't work. Homes collapse into the water just about every year and people just keep on doing the same old thing. I can't figure out how they get insurance.

all around the gulf coast people keep building and rebuilding in the path of hurricanes.

all around the midwest people keep building and rebuilding in the path of tornadoes.

all over the north people keep building and rebuilding where we know there will be ice storms.

Don't blame CA Coastal residents for having homes on the coast...

I have lived tornado alley, Oklahoma most of my 51 yrs. There is NO path, when they form they go where they want to go. There is no predicting. And I havent ever seen them hit same exact spot twice. Also in winter we have more ice then snow. Exactly how do we not build where there will be a ice storm?

Or Obama.

But definitely not the 1% for this one...

I'm sure somebody will try and blame global warming for this.

Oh no! Why waste time? The storms would be blowing all of you away and you would still be in denial!

Or Romney's big house....

It's the fault of Global warming because of the top 1% and their greed...and it's obamas fault because he's President, but mostly it's Bush's fault, just because he needs to be blamed for it too.

Did I cover all the bases?...oh, I forgot....it's also Congresses fault because they can't agree on anything. Now I got all the blame taken care of. In truth...it looks like someone forgot to build the road on BEDROCK instead of land fill. It was destined to fall off into the Sea...Tee Hee!!! ALL IN FUN

Or Nancy Pelosi because she's a princess who lives just up the street......

your are all wrong, its the North Koreans, they have been tunneling since 1952, they missed Seoul but just don't know it.

^^
possibly nailed it but..
How do we know its not the Vietcong? maybe they didnt realize cali isn't as stable as their hometurf and just got squashed:)

No, it was not Romney big house, it was one of Al Gore's Illuminated mansions. Don't worry people, Nancy Pelosi is already working on getting our tax dollars at work, along with some pet projects in "her" community. my quess is the job will be a done deal before lunch tomorrow.

Must be North Koreans.

The terrain has to look the same. After all, they filmed M*A*S*H about 50 miles northwest from there.

T.V. is like real life, right?

Or Bush

I'd say Bush. Obama had nothing to do with this. In more ways than one tv is like real life. Even story books. The show Once Upon A Time is actually a wise choice to help millions of people see who they truly are and why we are here, is an unforeseen mystery as to why life is not always what it seems to be. Everything happens for a reason and it helps us to realize that through the oceanconservancy.org advises all of us to stop global warming immediately

TO: wmozd87-3338411 who wrote:

"Is this what they mean when the sign says "Scenic Stop Ahead"?"

That means there's an area where you can pull over and park, get out and look over the ocean. Some areas along Paseo Del Mar also had picnic tables, grass where you could sit out and look at the ocean and watch the hand gliders.

It is [was] a very beautiful area.

@wmozd87-3338411

Too funny...great sarcasm...love it!

That sign was changed no doubt to ... 'Scenic Drop Ahead'. I'm glad nobody was hurt but I hope they save the Palm Tree.

Don't get your hopes up about the tree...

Trees have feelings too!

(did you know there are actually "shelters" for plants - for example, when you re-landscape your lawn?)

me too. Likely they will not to able to save it since it is close to the ditch and isolated from the rest of the road.. Heart breaking....poor tree. No access to it. Too dangerous for people to dig the roots.

What about the poor shrubs!?

I'm confident they will save the tree. My husband works construction and a year ago he worked the Humboldt Bay Power Plant in Arcada which is northern California. When it comes to wild life and the environment they are very proactive. Before the company my husband worked for could set up their trailers and prepare the ground for the new structure all the natural plants and wild life had to be removed. In fact if a frog, or crane, or plant life got in the way they had to stop work and call someone to come and remove and preserve the plant life and/or animal life, the construction crew were not allowed to arbitrarily destroy the area. In fact the surrounding construction site had to have special barriers put up to prevent any vehicle debris or run off from seeping into the wet lands and killing plant or animal life. So have no fear that "lone" palm tree will be saved, I'm quite sure.

" I thought that I would never see,

a roadside bomb that spared a tree"!

"Now this coastal marine will get no dates,

and his future fate is PTSD"!

earl-1130767, that's the ideal situation. But this road collapse is anything but the ideal situation. It may not be possible to save that tree, or the shrubs, without endangering the lives of the workers trying to do so. The site is THAT unstable. And as your husband will tell you, constructions crews do everything that they can to keep themselves and the co-workers safe.

The tree is a goner. It does not have papers not a native to the area. Just put there by the rich to show how rich they are and to make the illegal house keepers feel more at home

The shrubs have friends.

TO: pinchycrab who wrote:

"Don't get your hopes up about the tree..."

This is California, so you can bet your life that tree WILL be saved!

Have no doubt about it.

I Want A Shrubbery !!!

many may die in the process and the children in the area will continue to go hungry , but the tree, undoubtedly will be saved, and probably wherever it is moved will become a historic site and no-one will be able to use it for anything..ever.

What's a Palm doing there, must have to do with a California diversity program. Rats and nasty bugs live in Palm trees, good riddance.

lol, jelewe!!

The Knights Who Say "Ni!" have spoken!

Let's Occupy Shrubbery

Actually, this tree is a hero of erosion prevention.

Notice how the road around the tree, where the tree's root system is, didn't fall down?

If he had some friends, then perhaps the rest of the road would have stayed put.

Alas, Bob Ross is not with us to paint any more happy little trees.

wrathcome, The San Andreas Fault is a Strike/Slip fault. The means LA and SF will meet in a couple of hundred million years where San Luis Obispo is now.And even then, you'll STILL be an idiot.

lots of places do it if the soil is rocky and stable. Evidently that soil is not. How long have they known that ?

Practically the entire length of Highway 1 is "on the side of a cliff." That is what you do when you need to build a road between a rock and soft place.

Exactly where do you suggest you build California Highway 1? Behind the cliff? Then it would be called Highway 101. Oh, there is a Highway 101? Gee.

That cliff was alot further away when this road was originally built....

Take almost any road in the US. Leave it untouched for a few years and you will hardly know it was there. Roads (mostly) don't wash out when carved into rock, but otherwise they do.

So what LawyerGirl? This is a scenic area and you can bet your bippy that the road will be fixed.

This small stretch of highway has been slipping into the Pacific for decades [at least 35 years that I know of]. So why this news?

Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) is about five or six miles inland from Paseo Del Mar, which is the street you are looking at in the photos.

TO: LawyerGirl who wrote:

"Because it's ALWAYS a good idea to build a road on the side of a CLIFF! Raise your hand if you saw this coming..."

At the time this road was built, that was NOT the edge of the cliff. We have beach erosion all the time, and it is planned for ahead of time, and yet the beach still erodes.

Get it? "LawyerGirl" (I don't think so).

AmericanGirl, Your argument is about as worthless as those calling this highway 1. You say that when being built, this was planned for ahead of time but here we are watching it collapse. Lawyergirl was simply stating that anytime you build that close to the ocean and cliffs in a slide area, this will eventually happen. Look at Portugese ben a few miles down. The signs say constant land movement and the road changes often. Also look at Sunken City. It was lost years ago. Did they plan that? No, they sold it as high dollar ocean front property, made their money and got out. It's a profit deal to break it down for you. Paseo Del Mar has been my stomping ground and I've known the area for 25 years. You might want to pick your fights better. She just beat you out of court and YOU insulted your own intelligence. That's why she's a lawyer.

California was supposed to be washed away years ago, so it's gotten many more years than predicted. Looks like it's starting now...

@ lawyerGirl

When the road was built, in the 1920s or before, Iwould guess that the road was at least a mile from the bluff. When I was a teen, over 50 years ago the road was about a 1/4 mile or more from the bluff. There were also picnic areas with tables and benches.

That is called erosion.

Gojeaux, no. Nancy Pelosi lives waaaay up in Northern California. San Francisco Area.

TO: my2scents who wrote:

"Not the first time this highway has washed out and it certainly won't be the last! Thankful that nobody was hurt."

No? I actually think that it is the first time it was washed out like this. I think they worked on it before to shore it up, but I think this is the first time it's actually "gone".

Do you live out here? Cause I sure can't recall it ever collapsing before. And usually they do NOT rebuild in areas this volitile because it will just wash out again.

That's just ridiculous. Way back in 1992 Clinton was campaigning on how we have to fix "Roads and Bridges" over and over. What did he accomplish? NOTHING! Just talk...

It's just the mantra of the left. Obama did the same thing and the stimulus money was squandered. No roads and no bridges. Surprised? I wasn't. I new it was BS all along.

It was President Eisenhower (Republican) who started all the Interstate Highways in the 1950s. He was motivated by a study he did in the 1920s, as an Army officer.

Average Bear:

You look at one road and come to a whole lot of conclusions.

If I had to "blame" somebody, I'd blame Mother Nature. Presidents can't control everything, especially when it comes to acts of God.

The lefties and liberals are too busy spending it on the free stuff social program of the moment in order to get more votes for the next election. The mean, evil, rich people on the right (otherwise known as employers) would actually have the government spend the money on the roads. That way they would be able to conduct business with the people at the other end of the road.

Actually Eisenhower go the idea of our interstate highway system from the German autobahn. And secondly, what do you expect to happen when a road contract goes to the lowest bidder. Cut corners anyone?

Obama thinks he is god so he can fix it ok

That's rich. A road goes down somewhere, sometime, so absolutely no work is being done on roads and bridges? lmao. I'm assuming this must be sarcasm?

Truthfully, a lot of work has been and is constantly being done on roads and bridges all the time. It is one of the few expenditures the government can do that actually has an economic effect. But if you want everything fixed immediately, you're dreaming. Would take a whole lot more money than has ever been available.

Because being proactive isn't sexy to people's wallets or voting habits. That, and since you don't get any results from being proactive -- "it's still working normally/nothing went wrong" isn't considered a result -- these programs are the first things that gets budget cuts (e.g.: We didn't have blizzards for the last two years so lets cut back on the winter cleanup crews and road salt).

And get back, what, 10-20% on the dollar? But we'll make it up on volume on about $3,600,000,000,000 in spending for 2012? That's the kind of thinking that will ultimately bankrupt us.

Seems about right, 3.6 Trillion for 2012. For 2008 it was 2.9 Trillion and W's last budget for 2009 was 2.7 Trillion.

The best part was the additional $6 Trillion ($6,000,000,000,000) in debt that W signed off on. That doesn't include the $2 Trillion to pay for Iraq benefits to the military vets or the $7 Trillion for the unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug Plan.

That's the kind of thinking that will ultimately bankrupt us.

What budget, I haven't seen one yet. 2+ years and counting

Since when did it become the responsibility of the federal government to maintain the infrastructure of every state,or are we only concerned about Califiornia in this case? If you want to know where your tax dollars are going you probably should become more involved in your own state government and find out how your state officials have spent you into a debt that rivals that of Greece, (I still don't know how that is possible in a state that supposedly has a balanced budget provision in the state constitution). Grabbing money from other folks is great as long as they have the money to grab, but with the mounting debt we have in this country it may be a long time before there is any "free money" again; unless you can get it from China.

Jake Reyna:

"The best part was the additional $6 Trillion ($6,000,000,000,000) in debt that W signed off on. That doesn't include the $2 Trillion to pay for Iraq benefits to the military vets or the $7 Trillion for the unfunded Medicare Prescription Drug Plan."

It is really easy to blame the president; either "W" or Obama, but the realy culprit in all of this spending is Congress. We all seem to forget this because it is so "cool" to blame "the man". Budgets and budget deficits are the results of actions from Congress more than the president. The president, for instance, can not appropriate a single penny for any bill passed by Congress. So, the reall truth is that both Democrats and Repubilcans own the blame for our mounting debt. Still, I find it more than humorous that our current president blames "W" for the mess that he voted for as a Senator, before he was elected president. He kind of "inherited" the mess from himself.

You are an idiot.

My exact sentiments!

Wrote something similar above. Nostrodamas anyone?

True. CaliGirl

Read the book "Earth Abides" by George Stewart - a UC Berkeley Eng. Prof. in the 1950s. (No he wasn't a nut-case liberal). The book is how nature reclaims it "own" when mankind is wiped out by a sudden disease.

Tear

Loved that book. A little dated now, but still a great read, and the concept is timeless.

Global warming is a fake set up by Al Gore to get cash and be 'the hero'. There is scientific evidence that global warming is not real!

Agree. Made lots of money. Maybe that's why he's divorced - even she saw through his lies...

A fake started by thousands of scientists all across the world, getting together to create an elaborate hoax on the republicans and their idiotic ideas. One far reaching set up so republicans can ignore it and deregulate or eliminate the EPA and we'll go back to drinking mercury in our water and eating fish so toxic you grow a third eye. I usually let others have their own opinion, but damn, even republicans are starting to concede that it might be real. In 50 years when we have to have masks to go outside, the republicans will be out there stomping that they knew it was true the whole time.

You seem to
have merged two problems into one and that is not a way to solve any of our
problems. The global warming debate is primarily over CO2 concentrations and
one of the ironies of this is that we are now mandating moving away from
incandescent light bulbs which contain no mercury to cfl bulbs which do contain
mercury, (and a three page EPA description on how to dispose of a broken cfl
bulb). While there may some connections between global warming/climate change,
a lot of things that proponents of the Kyoto protocol are calling for will do
nothing to improve water quality of reduce mercury concentrations in water; in
fact they may have exactly the opposite effect. The issue is much more complex
than most people can even imagine or will try to think through because the
devil is in a host of details and nobody is discussing the after effects of
"solutions". For instance, if we all convert to electric cars, how do
we produce the extra electricity required to recharge them? Will the solution
be better than the "cure"? If we all could convert to Hydrogen fueled
vehicles would the extra water vapor be a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2
and have an even stronger effect upon the warming of our planet? I don't know of many people, on either side of this argument, who are not in agreement about cleaning our water or air but the whole issue has been sidetracked by an arbitrary argument over the effects of CO2, and that is most unfortunate.