[sulam]

A good friend used to rent a house overlooking the ocean in Pacifica. That was 2000, and that house is gone now. Amusingly, she lives in Manhattan now, and might get to see Chapter 2 or 3 of this epic saga we are living through. My kids will hopefully get to the end of the first book, if we get lucky and avoid a serious war somewhere in the middle. We moved from 8’ above sea level to 700’ above sea level last year. I still expect to help pay for saving the SF Bay Area, which will actually be able to engineer its way out of this thanks to a combination of fortuitous geographical circumstances and an economy large enough to sustain the trillion dollars it will cost to protect the area.

Ocean Beach will be history soon enough, though...

[olivermarks]

I've lived in the bay area for over 25 years and Ocean Beach has always remained exactly the same. Pacifica has had serious cliff erosion problems for as long as I can remember. huge problem in California is building in places that shouldn't be built on - fire plains, cliff tops etc

[khuey]

The reason Ocean Beach has always remained exactly the same is that the city relocates thousands of tons of sand to south end of it every year.

[olivermarks]

The city moves the wind sand drifts yes, but the tidal flows in and out of the golden gate are moving incredible amounts of sand pretty well every day, which is why the high surf moves around so much. It's not as though SF engineering is pushing sand south with bulldozers every year after it piles up near the golden gate bridge. There is way to much drama and misinformation flowing around on this topic IMO

[brodie]

It's hard to imagine SF being affected by this that much anytime soon. I can imagine the Marina and places like that having issues, but SF itself is so tall and there's so much hard rock everywhere.

But I don't know much about the Sunset or the Richmond so I guess you could speak better to that. I live near Twin Peaks.

[jacobolus]

Decently sized chunks of SF used to be water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Bay,_San_Francisco

Edit: elsewhere in the thread there’s a nice link to a map from the US coast survey, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/1858_U.S...

[brodie]

Marshland and lagoons sounds a bit different than ocean, though. Would they not be easier to drain and contain? Or are you saying this past makes it more susceptible to bay/ocean encroachment in the future?

I'm no civil engineer so this is totally out of my realm of knowledge.

Also, I guess I'm lucky to live on one of the highest points in the city.

[sbov]

I don't know what a "fire plain" is. But would you consider Oakland being in one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland_firestorm_of_1991

The fire problem in California is basically anywhere there is any wilderness. The state inevitably gets dry and becomes a tinderbox.

[olivermarks]

Same as a flood plain, an area that has seasonal conditions that are likely to endanger the area. Example: The recent Santa rosa fires which took out Fountaingrove. An identical fire happened same time of year and wind conditions in 1968 when the area was mostly grassland. They are already rebuilding huge houses there after the recent fire.