Five days ago this paper reported that Malibu had declared a coastal emergency and red-tagged parcels along Pacific Coast Highway, and noted that the city's announcement named no specific beach. It named one on Saturday evening.
The City of Malibu's alert, timestamped 6:12 p.m. on August 1, reads: "Westward Beach Rd in Malibu beyond the pay gate & Point Dume Beach parking lot are CLOSED until further notice due to beach erosion."
Westward Beach Road is the vehicle access to Point Dume Beach. With it closed past the pay gate, and the lot closed behind it, the ordinary way to drive to that stretch of sand is gone for an unspecified period.
What the county says about the bluff
The LA County Department of Beaches and Harbors describes the road closure in the same terms, attributing it to "severe erosion caused by recent high tides and surf."
The department also reports something the city alert does not: the bluff edge is unstable, and erosion has opened drop-offs reaching 8 feet in places. Visitors are told not to cross the safety barriers.
Restrooms 1, 2 and 3 are closed. The county attributes that to erosion damaging a water line, and says temporary chemical toilets and hand-washing stations have been placed nearby.
The county's only statement on timing is that updates will be posted as more information becomes available. No agency has given a reopening date, a repair plan or a cost.
Be precise about which beach this is
Point Dume, Westward Beach, Zuma Beach and Paradise Cove sit close together on the same few miles of coast, and they are not the same place. What the two agencies have closed is Westward Beach Road beyond the pay gate and the Point Dume Beach parking lot. Neither notice closes Zuma Beach, and neither closes Pacific Coast Highway.
Neither notice says whether the beach itself, or the Point Dume headland above it, can still be reached on foot. We are not going to guess at that, because the answer decides whether a reader drives out there.
For scale, the county lists Point Dume Beach at more than a mile of ocean frontage, 34 acres of sand and 373 parking spaces. Those are the spaces now behind a closure.
The connection we are not making
Malibu's coastal emergency declaration on July 27 concerned the loss of seawalls in the Palisades Fire burn area, where the city said destroyed structures no longer absorb wave energy along PCH. It was coordinating with Caltrans, the Governor's office, SoCalGas and Waterworks District 29 on temporary protection before the winter surf season.
Point Dume sits well west of that burn area. Both agencies attribute Saturday's closure to recent high tides and surf, and neither links it to the fire. Two erosion problems on the same coastline in the same summer is not, by itself, evidence that one caused the other, and we found no official statement connecting them.
What is fair to say is narrower, and still worth saying: this is the second time in six days that a Malibu agency has closed public infrastructure because the ocean took the ground out from under it.
