$400K in Federal Grants Will be to Used to Prevent Bluff Collapse in Encinitas

Last year, an unimaginable tragedy occurred at an Encinitas beach, forever changing the Davis family. While enjoying a day at Grandview Beach on Aug. 2, a massive chunk of sandstone collapses from the bluffs, killing three members of the Davis family. 

Now, Dr. Pat Davis will return to the site of the horrible tragedy along with Rep. Mike Levin to announce a new program to ensure such an event never occurs again. The two, accompanied by two local elected officials, intend to unveil newly appointed federal funds to stabilize the bluffs in Encinitas. 

“I lost my wife Julie, my youngest daughter Annie, a mother of two young children, and my wife’s sister Elizabeth, a mother of two teenage children in a bluff collapse at Grandview on August second,” Davis told the Encinitas City Council later that month. “There will be a new normal in my life without these three gifted women.”

$400,000 has been allocated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the use of planning, engineering, and designing of the Encinitas-Solana Beach Coastal Storm Reduction Project. This will provide the necessary foundation to support the shaky foundation of the bluffs, ensuring that no more tragedies like this occur ever again. 

“Why I wasn’t killed is beyond me. I was right next to my wife,” he told NBC 7. “We were sitting a foot apart and the bluff collapsed in such a way that it took out the three chairs next to me. Not mine.”

Dr. Davis and Levin have been lobbying to get this project approved since last year. The project is part of a bigger $30 million plan to restore the beaches of Southern California. “One of the stages of healing is to find a purpose in your life and if that purpose can come from the tragedy you’ve been through, that is supposed to be even better,” Davis said. “I do not want to see what happened to my family ever happen again.”