Photo Gallery: Pouring Seacoast Hotel Foundation

Work began before sunrise Wednesday around 4:30 a.m. and may extend late into the evening to pour 4,000 cubic yards of cement for the foundation of the hotel to replace the Seacoast Inn.

"They said it looked like The War of Worlds down there this morning with all the lights on and cement pourer arms out there," Mayor Jim Janney said.

At Imperial Beach Elementary School and Mar Vista High School, construction workers manned crosswalks as bloated cement trucks seemed to rumble down the street every 30 to 45 seconds as students made their way to classes Wednesday morning.

By 9 a.m., Seacoast Drive, three lines of trucks filled both sides of the street on Seacoast Drive and extended back three blocks. It will take a total 400 cement truckloads to finish the job, said Lusardi Construction.

Four different large trucks with tubes attached to long metallic arms poured the cement carried by the trucks into the large plot of land on 800 Seacoast Drive. Dozens of workers were there to smooth out and put in place the poured cement.

Onlookers watched through Dunes Park fences and along the sidewalk.

Traffic on street from Elder to Date Avenues is closed on Seacoast Drive Wednesday and may be extended into early Thursday morning.

Construction is scheduled to conclude by 9:30 p.m. Wednesday but may extend into Thursday morning.

Pacifica Companies, the hotel's owner, said they have not yet chosen a name for the four story, 78-room hotel scheduled to open in August 2012.

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