NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. – Like clockwork every day at 7:01 a.m. exactly, Newport Beach resident Sue Dvorak is greeted with a jarring alarm; the sound of planes departing from John Wayne Airport.

“You cannot sleep through it and we all say it’s our alarm clock that wakes us up in the morning,” says Dvorak.

Every day, about 150 flights go over her deck that looks out onto the Back Bay. She moved back to Newport from Michigan three years ago. But since the implementation of the NexGen Metroplex in 2017, an FAA initiative to improve overall efficiency of flight paths, departures no longer fan out. Unless it’s raining, their path is a straight line over her and her neighbors.

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“I thought when we moved here we were in paradise. And I thought we would have parties out here and entertain our guests out here and that’s not the case. I never come out here. And in fact I stay out of my house as much as possible because the noise is pretty unbearable,” Dvorak says.

Although NexGen is a recent development, the issue is nothing new. Fellow Newport resident Jean Watt co-founded the group Stop Polluting Our Newport and has been on the front lines of city environmental issues since its inception. She helped foster the 1985 landmark settlement that limited noise levels, commercial departures and capped the number of annual passengers.

“It’s always about, worrying about what can happen. It isn’t just what you’re experiencing at any one moment in time. It’s thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s going to get worse,” says Watt.

The FAA’s jurisdiction in this particular case means that for residents’ and city council’s arguments, nothing is legally requiring airlines to change their departure paths. According to City Council Member Kevin Muldoon, the city has asked the commercial carriers directly to reduce their impact.

“One by one we hope to work with carriers so they use the old procedure of taking off at a higher altitude right after leaving the airport so that less homes are impacted below them,” Muldoon says.

John Wayne Airport is owned by the county, requiring the surrounding Newport, Costa Mesa, the airport, and the Orange County Board of Supervisors to work together.

According to Dvorak and her fellow residents that is part of the frustration. They want to have a round table formed specifically for this issue, so that the process is streamlined.

In terms of departures, they are asking for a minimum height of 3,000 feet. According to the Office of the Inspector General, NexGen Metroplex has fallen short of its intended goals, benefitting airspace users nearly 50 percent less than expected.

Dvorak who lives with the noise every day says she has reached her limit, but is staying involved in the fight for her neighbors.

“I’m moving because of the planes actually. I just give up. I’m out of here,” Dvorak says.

They just hope to be heard.