Southern California’s battered coastline has produced another alarming image: a deep fracture cutting through the bluff immediately below Pacific Coast Highway at El Morro, between Laguna Beach and Newport Beach.
Aerial imagery shows the crack snaking from near the highway toward the cliff edge above the Pacific, where months of powerful surf have stripped away sand and hammered the base of the bluff. Laguna Beach local Blair Conklin documented the damage in a new video, highlighting just how vulnerable the road suddenly appears.
Check out the footage below:
The threat is no longer theoretical.
“The cliff side right here this close to PCH is falling… that’s why all this water is so brown,” Conklin explained. “They just closed part of one lane on PCH, and my guess is because the cliff is eroding so bad… it might be at risk of having part of PCH crumble into the ocean.” Conklin noted the massive crack comes “about 10 feet away from the road” and predicted a major collapse could happen in the coming days.
Caltrans says southbound Highway 1 is currently reduced to one lane from Irvine Cove to Reef Point Drive because of emergency work.
California State Parks has also closed portions of nearby Crystal Cove after what officials called “significant coastal erosion and infrastructure damage” from high tides and large surf associated with former Hurricane Rachel. Twenty-six historic beachfront cottages were evacuated as a precaution.
El Morro carries plenty of history. The stretch, now part of Crystal Cove State Park, was once home to the famous El Morro Village—nearly 300 mobile homes scattered on both sides of PCH before the state removed them in the mid-2000s and converted the land for public recreation.
The wave holds a mythical quality for many. Fickle, yet iconic, when it’s on. It’s also been featured in celebrated surf films, such as Volcom’s 1998 VHS epic, Magna Plasm.
But today, El Morro looks much different.
And the coastline was already hurting before Rachel.
During September’s Hurricane Marie swell, Conklin said it was “the least amount of sand” he had ever seen on South Laguna beaches in his lifetime.
Now an El Niño-fueled Kelvin wave is making matters worse by raising Southern California’s background sea level roughly 6 to 12 inches. USGS researcher Jonathan Warrick called the recent combination of “high tides, Kelvin wave, hurricane waves” unprecedented.
And winter hasn’t even arrived.
NOAA says there is virtually a 100% chance this El Niño becomes very strong, while researchers warn that incoming winter storms—especially when paired with king tides—could trigger more flooding, erosion and cliff failures.
At El Morro, that warning suddenly looks very real.
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