Perched atop a majestic cliff
Another one from the “let’s build a house in an area prone to drought/tornadoes/earthquakes/wildfire and have a blissful life forever after” file.
Perched atop a majestic cliff, Rancho Palos Verdes is a stunning city by the sea. Those who live here do so for the grand views of the ocean, the lush valleys, the breeze that sweeps away the heat of the sun.
But the scene on this peninsula 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles comes with a caveat. Underneath the multimillion-dollar homes is a large complex of landslides. Every day, the ground moves.
That’s some “caveat.” The earth under your house is constantly sliding – no big deal.
For a long time, that movement was so glacial — about an inch a year — it was accepted simply as a quirk of the region. Now, for some residents, it has become catastrophic. Across a span of one square mile, the pace has quickened to nearly four feet a month.
Homes have been yanked apart at the seams, and some have collapsed altogether, their sunken roofs and splintered walls swallowed halfway into the earth. The gas was shut off more than a month ago to a swath of residents. They have since been hunkering down, relying on electric hot plates or propane, scrambling for answers before their life savings cave in around them, too.
It’s ok, because what landslides like to see is grit and determination, so if the residents just hunker down no matter what, the landslides will decide to stop.
While outsiders question why locals stay, residents say it would be inconceivable to just walk away from their nest eggs, given that home insurance policies generally exclude land movement.
For them, living on a landslide is no different than living in a region prone to tornadoes or hurricanes or flooding: It is not a problem until it is, and then you find ways to carry on.
Unless, of course, you don’t. Unless the roof falls on your head, or your house slides into the Pacific taking you with it, or you spend your last penny trying to shore up your house and no one will bankroll you any longer.
There’s a longstanding weakness in government disaster relief that plays into this problem. If your home is destroyed in a federally recognized disaster you often get a choice–cash out for the estimated value of the home, or a complete rebuild. The latter is invariably more expensive, and so folks often feel it would be stupid to NOT rebuild right in the exact same place.
What’s needed is a “Get out of Dodge” program that assesses the rebuild cost, and then tells the resident, “We’ll give you this money, but you have to move someplace safer with it.” If they take the deal, the government would take the original property, either holding it as empty land, or even using it for mitigation efforts like flood control.
My mother lives not far from Rancho Palos Verdes – I have been there a few times, and it is indeed very beautiful. She moved there almost 50 years ago (at the time it was not so much a playground for the super-rich), and even got married in Wayfarers Chapel. Her home is a fair way back from the cliffs, so not (at least currently) at risk, as far as I know. I do wonder how much was known about the risks back in the day
The whole California coast is indeed very beautiful. Much (or all?) of it is also very erosion-prone – more sand than rock, I think. My guess is there’s been a lot of optimistic denial over the years.