Home Care In Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

Some residents of the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes, a quiet community with stunning ocean views, are getting used to a new normal: Water pipes that were dug up to be place over the ground, sandbags in many corners of the area, and plastic tarps covering acres of oceanfront land.

Ground movement in the Portuguese Bend areas where the Seaview neighborhood sit is nothing new. But in the last several months, ground movement has been exacerbated. At least two homes in the community have been red-tagged amid the landslides.

“The ground is opening up,” said Mayor John Cruikshank of Rancho Palos Verdes. “The landslide complexes are about a mile wide and a wild high. It’s several hundred acres.”

As some of the fissures, which are cracks and openings in the earth, become deeper and wider, Cruikshank said they are also safety issues for neighbors.

“The fissures can be 4 to 5 feet wide and 20 to 40 feet deep,” Cruikshank explained. “Plus, they soak the water from the rain and make things worse.”

Crews have been doing damage control by filling the fissures with earth and putting plastic tarps over them, so less water will go into the ground and further worsen the landslides.

Another safety issue is the underground water pipes.

As the recent storms are allowing the earth to move more quickly and frequently, the concern is the underground pipes could burst amid the storms and landslides.

“Cal Water, our water supplies, had to put main water lines above the ground because when they were below ground they were sheering,” Cruikshank added. “And actually they were putting more water into the ground. “

The Rancho Palos Verdes is moving to ask Governor Newsom to step in and declare a state of emergency for the city,

“Resources not just in our city but communities around us have been expanding to try to preserve what they can here and do their best to fill the fissures and roads,” Cruikshank said. “It would also allow us to move forward with bigger projects like storm drainage.”

The city council is scheduled to meet Tuesday to vote on whether to send a letter to the governor, seeking the state’s support.

As the second of a three-day rain storm hit the Palos Verdes Peninsula with light, steady rain, officials reported Tuesday they are closely monitoring areas that have experienced land movement.

So far, with the exception of some additional damage noted to Wayfarers Chapel, things appear relatively stable, according to spokespeople in both Rancho Palos Verdes and Rolling Hills Estates, two cities with past land movement issues.

The beloved Rancho Palos Verdes chapel, which abruptly closed on Feb. 15 because of cracks in the floor and in glass panes, has endured additional damage, said Megan Barnes, spokesperson for the city.

“The city’s building official continues to regularly inspect Wayfarers Chapel,” Barnes said in an email. “Additional damage and movement has been observed in the chapel and an administrative office.”

The most recent inspection on Tuesday, said Barnes, inspectors observed new cracks, continued sliding and damage to a retaining wall behind the office building.

Rancho Palos Verdes — the site of the largest active landslide areas in North America — is regularly monitoring all areas that have experienced land movement, said Barnes. These areas include Palos Verdes Drive South, Seaview, Portuguese Bend Community Association, Portuguese Bend Beach Club and Abalone Cove.

Abalone Cove Park and Reserve, as well as the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve, remained closed to the public after officials shuttered the popular hiking and viewing spots on Monday, Feb. 19. Those areas will be closed for 48 hours or longer.

On Palos Verdes Drive South, a major thoroughfare on the southmost end of the peninsula, conditions remained tenuous. The northbound lane, for example, between Peppertree Drive and Narcissa Drive, contains a hill so steep, cars with low undercarriages have to slow to a near halt to keep from scraping.

The city already spends nearly $1 million per year repairing and resurfacing a portion of Palos Verdes Drive South, according to earlier reports.

And, the city has a contingency plan, said Barnes, that involves different stages of response measures corresponding with the road’s condition.

“We regularly inspect the road to identify needed repairs so they can be made as soon as possible,” Barnes added.

“In a worst-case scenario, the road would be closed and detours would be established,” she said. “We are not there yet.”

If the city had to detour that major road, said Barnes, about 15,000 vehicles per day would be impacted. That includes not only RPV residents, buy commuters from other South Bay cities as well as Long Beach and Orange County.

Palos Verdes Drive South, said Barnes, is also a evacuation route for the entire Peninsula, which is designated a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.

Maintaining the integrity of that road, added Barnes, is a key priority for the Portuguese Bend Landslide Remediation Project, which the city hopes to fast-track by asking for state and federal funds.

Further inland on the Peninsula, in Rolling Hills Estates, most recently known for the catastrophic Peartree Lane landslide in July 2023 where 12 homes were lost, the city had no notable impacts so far due to the latest rainstorm.

Alexa Davis, that city’s assistant city manager, said crews are out monitoring all areas of the city along with LA County Fire and Sheriff department personnel.

“City staff and its building inspection team are responsive if a resident or business has a concern related to their private property,” Davis said via email.

And, there are no homes impacted nor significant changes in the condition of the homes on Peartree Lane, she added.

Rolling Hills Estates did have a traffic light malfunction early Tuesday at Palos Verdes Drive North and Crenshaw Boulevard, but that was remedied, Davis said.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula — built on the largest moving landslide area in North America — weathered the first day of another storm on Monday, Feb. 19, expected to unleash three days of rain and another wave of anxiety.

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Abalone Cove Park and trails are closed due to the weather on Monday, Feb. 19, 2024. ..(Photo by Axel Koester, Contributing Photographer)

Persistent showers fell short of the record-shattering rainfall that pounded the area earlier this month, but further saturated already-soaked soil on Monday, Feb. 19, and the threat of continued land movement was top of mind for people here, especially in the landslide areas.

With beloved landmark Wayfarers Chapel already closed indefinitely, officials shut down an array of popular hiking trails on Monday for at least a couple of days.

Rancho Palos Verdes — the Peninsula’s largest city and host to landslide complexes that cover 670 acres — is preparing on Tuesday, Feb. 20, to ask Gov. Gavin Newsom to “suspend or waive” some state requirements that could help expediate the environmental review process on its Portuguese Bend Landslide Remediation Project. Council will also request President Joe Biden declare a federal disaster, which could lead to federal funding, according to a Feb. 19 RPV Landslide Update email.

But county Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose Fourth District includes the peninsula communities, didn’t wait until Tuesday to urge the governor to take action.

“I think if the governor came here and saw the buckling streets, the homes sinking and cracking apart, and the historic Wayfarers Chapel on the verge of collapsing, he would understand the urgency of this request,” said Hahn. This is a crisis that is getting worse by the day, and I urge Gov. Newsom to visit us and see it with his own eyes.”

Brian Ferguson, state spokesperson, said Newsom, on Feb. 4, has already declared a state of emergency for eight counties amid recent storms, including L.A. County.

“Our office will continue to work with L.A. County and with L.A. County’s office of emergency management to determine what state aid could be available to assist those in the impacted region,” Ferguson said.

The state emergency team, said Ferguson, has already been on the ground in the area for several weeks. And the state will work with locals as more specific aid is needed, he added.

On Monday, the President’s Day holiday and corresponding school holidays meant less traffic than usual on the Peninsula.

But a few people were still out grocery shopping or enjoying a damp seaside lunch as they navigated slick roadways and dense fog that blanketed the western-most tip of the peninsula.

Officials announced that the Palos Verdes Nature Preserve, along with the Abalone Cove Park and Reserve, will be closed to the public for 48 hours or longer amid the storm. According to city officials, the popular trails are now fraught with sink holes, unstable trails and surfaces, erosion, steep cliffs and falling rocks.

“It (Palos Verdes Nature Preserve) may remain closed for up to 48 hours or more for public safety and to prevent further trail erosion,” according to a Instagram post from the city Monday morning.

Trails have also been closed in the Filiorum Reserve, Forrestal Reserve, Ocean Trails Reserve and the Portuguese Bend Reserve, in the past.

On Feb. 15, Wayfarers Chapel and city officials announced that the historic venue will be closed indefinitely as cracks in the church floors and panes of glass have increased substantially in recent months.

Wayfarer’s, according to Rancho Palos Verdes geologist Mike Phipps, is particularly vulnerable as it borders the intersection of two landslide areas: The ancient Portguese Bend Landslide complex, which has been reactivated and the more recently identified Abalone Cove Landslide area.

Phipps said, during a Feb. 16 interview, he’ll be making a stop to check on Wayfarer’s stability later this week.

Wayfarer’s closure triggered impacts on other areas of the peninsula. North of the chapel, Savanna Chung and a team of coordinators were busy answering the La Venta Inn phones on Monday afternoon.

La Venta Inn, a century-old Spanish set of buildings perched high on a Palos Verdes Esates hill, is another popular venue for weddings. Chung said she’s been fielding more than 40 calls a day from people trying to rebook ceremonies after the Wayfarer news.

They are more than happy to accommodate such requests, said Chung, adding that La Venta Inn has fared quite well in the recent rains. They’re at the top of a stable hill, she said with soil suitable for soaking up water, not the clay substructure known in the landslide areas.

The grassy knoll at La Venta Inn, weather permitting, will welcome a Wayfarer-canceled ceremony next week, she said.

“I know it’s not Wayfarer’s,” said Chung, looking out over a misty, but expansive view of the Pacific, “but it’s still beautiful.”

But land movement has had a secondary impact on La Venta Inn. Chung said two employees, who live deeper into the Peninsula near Palos Verdes Drive South, no longer want to take that road in to work each day.

Over the last several weeks, nearly a mile of Palos Verdes Drive South has buckled and pitched due to land movement. Her team members, said Chung, now travel more inland routes to get to work at La Venta, avoiding the undulating, treacherous roadway.

Further inland, in the Rolling Hills Estates area near the Peninsula Center Shopping Center, a row of retailers sits directly in front of a massive black tarp-covered slope. Sand bags, for now, do a decent job of diverting the runoff from the hill into Deep Valley Drive.

In the bottom tier of retailers, amid the nail salons and tailoring shops, there’s a steady stream of people walking their dogs and dropping off pups at the curb. That’s because Brickwalk is the site of Integrative Pet Wellness Center, which, during the coronavirus pandemic, took over multiple offices on Deep Valley Drive.

Integrative’s Dianne Shigenaka paused to take note of the mud trickling down from the tarped hillside behind the businesses. She says workers arrive daily to work to secure the hillside.

Shigenaka lives nearby. She’s about a five-minute drive away, near Peartree Lane, the site of the devastating land movement event where nearly a dozen homes slid into the canyon.

Her townhome sits right on the canyon, directly opposite from Peartree Lane. But, she said, she’s not concerned.

“Everything there is fine,” said Shigenaka, about her home. “We’re fine.”

But for Peartree homeowner April Zee, whose home is one of the 12-red-tagged structures still standing after the Rolling Hills Estates disaster, the storm triggered another round of angst.

Her daily drive by Peartree Lane on Monday did nothing to soothe her nerves. It was too foggy to see the hillside, so she was unsure of the status of the homes in the area.

“I feel for all the other homeowners in RPV,” she said via text, “going through what we are going through.”

Staff writer Michael Hixon contributed to this report.

As land continues to slide at an alarming rate in Rancho Palos Verdes, residents are hopeful that the state's government can come to their aid before it's too late.

Landslides have constantly plagued residents in recent months, with multiple homes even sliding off of their foundations as the earth underneath gives way. With another powerful storm closing in on Los Angeles, bringing even more rain to an already overly saturated area, their concerns continue to mount, hopeful that their home isn't next.

People living in the Seaview neighborhood have grown used to construction crews flooding their streets during wet weather, working to prevent additional houses from getting red-tagged after two were deemed unsafe following a destructive storm last week that caused more than 400 landslides throughout LA County.

Those are just the latest casualties in a series of landslides in the area, after multiple buildings were red-tagged in September of last year due to a landslide just over a month after the devastating slide in Rolling Hills Estates that destroyed a dozen homes.

Experts say that the land in the area has been slowly moving for years, but a significant increase in the speed of the land's movement is fueling their concerns.

"We're concerned," said Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank. "The ground's already saturated. Every time it rains the homes move even more."

Neighbors know to report any cracks and slippage that they notice on their property so that it can be assessed by building and safety officials as soon as possible.

"It's a little scary," said Ron Komie, who rents a home in the neighborhood. "Nobody knows when things are gonna move."

As of now, the road where Duantless Drive meets Exultant Drive is closed due to several feet of land movement that caused the street to shift. The intersection littered with plastic and sand bags ahead of the storm's heaviest rain expected on Tuesday.

Just a mile away, on the other side of the Portuguese Peninsula an iconic Southern California wedding venue was forced to shut its doors for good due to the constant land movement.

Wayfarers Chapel, which has been around since the early-1950s, announced their sudden plans for closure late last week, canceling dozens of weddings that were being planned at the historic church.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn joined residents in their calls on California Governor Gavin Newsom to issue a state of emergency for the area.

"We need the Governor's help. It is my understanding that the City of Rancho Palos Verdes will be asking the Governor to declare a State of Emergency for the Greater Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex," Hahn's statement said. "I think if the Governor came here and saw the buckling streets, the homes sinking and cracking apart, and the historic Wayfarers Chapel on the verge of collapsing, he would understand the urgency of this request. This is a crisis that is getting worse by the day, and I urge Governor Newsom to visit us and see it with his own eyes."

It's unclear exactly when city officials plan to officially request the State of Emergency.

Michele Gile

Michele joined KCAL9 in 1990 as the Orange County reporter and she has loved it there ever since! She reports from the field for both KCAL9 and CBS2.

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Landslides have shaped the Palos Verdes Peninsula for the last several generations, but recent damage to homes across the affluent area of the South Bay shows the earth is moving dramatically faster than in recent years.

Residents are watching cracks develop in and around their homes, desperately worried that they will end up like the dozen houses that collapsed over the summer in Rolling Hills Estates, one of four cities on the peninsula.

Officials in the region are bracing for more movement, trying to slow down or stop the shifting ground beneath their feet with updates to existing water and sewer lines and other infrastructure, along with ongoing monitoring.

Most recently, two homes in the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes were red-tagged due to visible cracks and structural damage. One home was deemed unsafe and red-tagged June 30 by city officials. A second home was red-tagged on Aug. 31, said Megan Barnes, a senior administrative analyst with the city.

Seaview is in the southeast corner of Rancho Palos Verdes, not far from a landslide complex that covers about 240 acres of the peninsula and has been a slow-moving hazard for years but that has now, alarmingly, picked up pace.

Rancho Palos Verdes Councilmember Eric Alegria asked city staff whether it would be possible to declare a state of emergency due to the ground shifting more markedly and an increase in water line breaks over the last several months.

“I think declaring a state of emergency will give us an opportunity to summon all the resources we’re going to need to coordinate,” Alegria said, and streamline “processes with the agencies that we want to bring in to support us in this effort.”

The council did not declare an emergency at its regular meeting Tuesday, but the city did approve a contract agreement for engineering and construction work to reduce existing water saturation of soil and improve runoff outside of areas already affected by land movement.

The city also asked for utility companies that serve the area to come back with a report on short- and long-term solutions to address the ground shifts and how the existing infrastructure could be updated to accommodate more movement.

The Daily Breeze first reported on Tuesday’s City Council meeting, which brought out about 20 residents who spoke about their concerns on the ground shifts and their worry for the upcoming rainy season.

California

July 23, 2023

Many residents are worried that what happened in Rolling Hills Estates earlier this summer could happen elsewhere on the peninsula.

The ground gave way in early July beneath homes bordering a canyon, collapsing roofs, cracking driveways and splitting open walls. The official cause of the damage has not been determined, but Los Angeles County officials speculate that the ground was saturated due to record winter rainfall.

The homes descended toward the bottom of a canyon as the ground actively shifted for several days. Now, residents in the Seaview area are worried that the problem they’re watching unfold in their own neighborhood will only get worse.

“I think we’re past just measuring” land movement, resident Joe Cruz said during Tuesday’s council meeting. “We need action now.”

The water lines to his neighborhood have had multiple breaks due to the ground shifting, Cruz said, and residents are worried that leaks will lead to more water saturating the soil.

Nikki Noushkam said cracks had developed in and around her home over the last several weeks. She lives across the street from a home that was recently red-tagged.

“We are dealing with a situation that requires urgent action,” Noushkam told the City Council.

Mark Koch said he’d seen more land movement outside his home in the last two years than he’d seen in the 35 years since he moved to the city.

“I’m literally at the end of the line where everything drains out into the ocean,” he said. “The amount of water that’s coming through our system is unprecedented.”

City officials agree that the ground is moving at a faster rate than in previous years. Between 2007 and 2018, the rate of movement in the area of the peninsula known as the landslide complex remained consistent, but starting in 2018 that ground movement increased by 3 to 5 times, Rancho Palos Verdes officials said in a recent report.

Although only two homes were red-tagged in the Seaview neighborhood, several other homes are damaged but have not been red-tagged by city inspectors, according to Barnes. The Los Angeles County Fire Department also inspected other homes in the neighborhood.

The city report echoed residents’ observations, noting that in the last several months more ground movement had resulted in broken water lines and sewer pipes.

The landslide complex includes Abalone Cove, the Klondike Canyon Landslide Abatement District and the Portuguese Bend landslide.

City staff are in contact with homeowners and have instructed them how to report any observations and concerns, or request an inspection.

“Since the accelerated land movement was observed in late June, Public Works has been working with a geotechnical engineer to monitor the movement,” Barnes said. “This is in addition to regular monitoring throughout the year in the City’s overall landslide complex.”