Ocean Beach Locals Mobilize to Push City to Repair Bermuda Beach Stairs - OB Rag

The Save Bermuda Beach crowd, Aug. 25, 2019. Photo by Linda Burke.

A brand new network of local OBceans called the Save Bermuda Beach group held their “kick-off” event this past Sunday, August 25 – down at – of all places – the foot of Bermuda Street, where the stairs have been damaged.

The goal of the group is to mobilize neighbors and other locals to pressure the City of San Diego to repair the stairs that lead to a small, popular beach.

The access stairs to the beach were damaged by a winter storm in early 2016 and the public access has been closed since then.

Photo by Stu Seymore

The event was organized by Tom Roeber, who provided refreshments for all the locals who showed up, with signs provided by the Resister Sisters of Ocean Beach.

Here is some background to the situation, a part of Kevin Hasting’s sweeping critique of OB’s inaccessible coast, “Ocean Beach Gets a Failing Grade for Coastal Access”, published in the OB Rag in early 2018.

Bermuda Stairs – CLOSED

The stairs to this popular pocket beach were damaged by a winter storm in early 2016, along with the access stairs in La Jolla on Coast Boulevard. The city declared the La Jolla stair project an emergency and repaired it in the summer of the following year, using funds originally allocated for Bermuda and other OB projects.

Per the city’s project manager, construction on the Bermuda stairs is currently anticipated in the fall of 2020. This is identified as CIP #B17110 and has an estimated cost of $200K.

Photo by Stu Seymore

In September, a woman was witnessed falling down to the beach while scaling the damaged stairs. The next day she was found deceased on the beach but it is unclear if the damaged stairs were a contributing factor.

Kevin demonstrates very clearly that the Bermuda stairs are not the only access points to the coast that are damaged. But at least here and now, locals are organizing.