Powerful winter storms sweep away a spectacular amount of sand, leaving a rugged landscape of rock and cliff-side staircases that drop off into the air. Jeremy and Fernando Gutierrez descended a staircase to a cove in Laguna Beach for a nighttime lobster dive and almost fell into the ocean. Even in the darkness, the brothers could see what the problem was — the sand at Treasure Island Beach had all but disappeared, leaving a rugged landscape of rock and a sudden drop-off where the staircase once led gently to the strand. “I couldn't believe it,” said Fernando Gutierrez, 26, of Costa Mesa. “There was no beach and a 20-foot drop-off.” It's a similar scene at dozens of other Southern California beaches where powerful winter storms have swept away a spectacular amount of sand. The vanishing beaches have forced city crews in Dana Point to remove fire rings, picnic tables and shower pads so lifeguards have room to patrol the remaining sand. At Laguna's Rockpile Beach, the waves scrubbed the shore so heavily that jagged rocks and rusty remnants of an old sewer system that haven't been seen for years reemerged. “This year it was just plain rock pile,” said Ken Frank, city manager of Laguna Beach. “Forget the beach.” And at Dockweiler Beach near Los Angeles International Airport, cobblestones are visible where there once was soft sand, and workers have been using heavy machinery to fill in some of the more perilous drop-offs. “We lost half a dozen palm trees that were planted in the 1980s” after the sand holding their roots washed away, said Rich Haydon, the state Department of Parks and Recreation superintendent for Doheny, San Clemente and San Onofre state beaches. “The amount of sand taken away from Doheny is going to take many, many years to replenish, if it does replenish at all.” The storms' scouring of the Southern California shoreline — remarkable at some beaches, barely noticeable at others — has caused the worst damage and most significant beach erosion in at least a decade, according to parks and beach officials. In January and February, powerful swells, high tides and strong winds swept away tons of sand from the coastline, stealing as much as 30 to 40 feet of beachfront at some locations. In the month or two since the El Ni
