An aspiring Olympian’s Long Beach beachfront home crumbled into the ocean after three storm swells in six weeks, a loss she says breaks her heart.
Paris Porter, who aims to sail for Team USA at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, rented the house with her husband, RJ Porter, on Long Beach’s Alamitos Peninsula. Over the weekend, Tropical Storm Rachel battered the Southern California coast and finished what earlier swells had started.
The half-crumbled house had already become a familiar image in drone shots and viral posts. This week Porter posted her own video naming it as theirs, and mourning what the storms did to the block around them.
Reporting on the collapse describes homes along the peninsula decimated after the latest hit, with city tagging that left multiple addresses unsafe to enter.
Porter did not treat the weekend storm as a one-off. In the video she pointed to a run of weather Southern California almost never sees in a tight window.
"You know that house you constantly see half-crumbled in the news, drone shots, and viral posts of the Long Beach Peninsula? Well, that was our home. Three hurricane swells in six weeks in Southern California? Unheard of..."
Long Beach Fire Department spokesperson Melanie Miller traced the same sequence on the city’s side. The damage did not begin with Rachel.
"The collapse began when Marie came in early September, and it’s been building off of that. Then Hurricane Polo, now Rachel. It’s been continuous damage since then."
Miller said crews had prepared and even put 3,000-pound sandbags in place. She also described the hard limit on that work: narrow low-tide windows, and water dynamics working against the shoreline defense.
"There have been preparations, we even deployed 3,000-pound sandbags, but you can only do so much during low tide; there are limited windows of opportunity. And the dynamics are working against you."
Heavy bags and limited tide gaps still left a beachfront row taking hit after hit. Continuous damage is the phrase the fire department used. Continuous is what the Porters lived through.
Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson said at least eight buildings, covering 13 addresses, were red-tagged as unsafe to enter. Another building was yellow-tagged, giving residents limited access to pull belongings out.
Richardson said the city was taking the situation “very seriously.” He also tied the wreckage to a larger regional message on “climate resilience and coastal resiliency.”
For the people on the peninsula, the immediate facts were simpler. Houses were unsafe. Access was restricted. Neighbors lost more than a view.
Porter and her husband put that neighbor cost at the center of their message, not only their own rented home.
"Seeing the destruction, not only to our house but to everyone around us, breaks our hearts. To see three storms undo a place that brought so much peace is devastating, especially knowing how deeply it impacts our neighbors who lost so much more. The peninsula will always hold a special place in our hearts."
They also said they expect to land on their feet, and called that luck they refuse to take for granted. They are in temporary housing for the next eight months while they figure out next steps.
"We know we will be okay moving forward and that is lucky, and we don’t take it for granted," they wrote.
Miller’s account and Richardson’s figures describe a city that stacked sandbags, restricted entry, and labeled the moment a resilience issue for the region and the state. Porter’s video describes a rented home that became a ruin on camera, and a block of neighbors who lost still more.
Rachel was the latest name in a six-week run. Marie started the collapse in early September. Polo kept the pressure on. By the time the weekend storm hit, the peninsula was already absorbing continuous damage.
No injuries or deaths were reported in the account of this loss. The bill still landed on people who had been living with the peace of that shoreline, and who now sort through red tags, yellow tags, and months of temporary housing.
When homes fall into the Pacific, residents need seaworthy protection and straight answers, not only another round of resilience talk.
