BERM BUILDING

Winter is the time for strong storms in the Pacific and the higher surf erodes the beach. Last year the waves flooded quite a large area, even onto the main business street. Not all the beachfront in Carpinteria is part of the state beach. Beachfront homes and condos take up where the state property ends. In order to protect this expensive real estate, they build a berm. The work has to be done at low tide so the bulldozer has room to move sand. It's a boring job even if you are doing it on a beautiful beach. The worker goes back and forth scraping sand into one continuous 10 foot high berm along the beach in front of the properties. The ground floor units lose their ocean view, but that's better than having ocean running through the door!

Next post: Why do the children get so excited when the berm is finished?