Students Return to Eroding Isla Vista Cliffs as El Niño Threatens Landslides

As the new academic term begins, UC Santa Barbara undergraduates are re-occupying houses perched on Del Playa Drive, a street that runs atop a rapidly eroding cliff in Isla Vista, California. The area is already crowded, with cars stacked in driveways and moving boxes piled near dumpsters, while those living closest to the edge notice the ground thinning and backyard sections disappearing. An incoming El Niño pattern threatens to exacerbate the situation by delivering heavy rain that penetrates the sandy surface and reaches fragile mudstone and shale layers below.

Simultaneously, elevated tides and storm-driven surf could strike the bluff from the sea, increasing the risk of sudden landslides. Larry Gurrola, an engineering consulting geologist with three decades of experience, explains that when the bluff finally gives way, the process resembles a glacier collapse, sending massive blocks of rock onto the shoreline. Residents fear that the combination of human density and natural forces could soon result in dangerous rockfalls onto the Pacific.