Pacifica Home On Crumbling Cliff Lifted Onto Jacks For Future Move

PACIFICA (KPIX 5) -- A Pacifica home is being moved from its cliffside perch after a storm surge lopped off her backyard, sending it crashing onto the beach below.

"It was kind of a swooshing, crackling sound.  Every time the sound happened we shone the flashlight outside and there were more pavers gone," Melissa McConnell told KPIX 5.

It was in January that a huge El Nino storm surge lopped off the backyard of Melissa McConnell's Pacifica home.  Melissa had to flee the dream house she'd been working on for seven years.

"And then we had to decide what to do. It was move it or lose it," McConnell said.

She chose the former, calling in Wacker and Sons House Movers out of Petaluma.

"She sent me pictures and I immediately picked up the phone and said if we can do this we gotta do it now," Gino Medeiros, co-owner of Wacker and Sons House Movers said.

So today was moving day, or more precisely - raising day.  A series of hydraulic jacks were set to lift the little house off its foundation.  The crew admitted it was a bit nerve-wracking…working on the edge of an abyss. But slowly-ever so slowly-the house took flight.

"The goal today is to get the house about 4 feet in the air," Medeiros said.

Next, workers will construct a set of tracks and the entire house will be moved about 20 feet forward to the sidewalk.  And that's where it will sit, buying time while Melissa searches for someone with a vacant lot in Pacifica.

"We're hoping that one of them will allow us to purchase it at market value, and we can move our house, and save our dream."

McConnell's permits are good for about six months, which she hopes is enough time to find a new location in town for her house.