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The ground is slipping out from under one of Los Angeles’ ritziest coastal enclaves, with million-dollar real estate creeping toward the Pacific — as a potentially soaking winter could accelerate the destruction.
Portuguese Bend in Rancho Palos Verdes is now shifting more than an inch a week, a fresh uptick that has officials eyeing the battered coastline as another round of heavy rain looms.
The latest acceleration follows a mid-October pounding from tropical storm-fueled waves that chewed away at the Southern California coast.
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It’s an ugly turn for a place prized for its postcard views of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. The scenery remains, but the landscape has been ripped apart by gaping chasms, with some cracks plunging 20 feet deep or stretching a dozen feet across.
And the ground has already shown just how fast things can go sideways.
After decades of relatively little movement, above-average rainfall in recent years sent the hillside into a far more dramatic slide, with some areas shifting as much as a foot per week.
The pace has since eased, thanks in part to wells installed by the city to suck water out of the ground, but the damage is still there — and the underlying problem likely can’t be stopped altogether.
Now, the enclave faces another test as a super El Nino is expected to drench Southern California in the coming weeks. For a community already dealing with unstable land, another wet winter is hardly welcome news.
There has been one encouraging sign. Winter preparations, including filling large fissures, “fared well” during recent rainfall, city officials said.
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Palos Verdes Drive South, which cuts through the slide zone and typically floods when rainy weather rolls in, also avoided the need for pump trucks during the recent rainfall.
But a brief reprieve is a long way from an all-clear.
The land is moving faster than it was in August, the hillside remains scarred, and officials are staring down another potentially soggy season with no permanent fix in sight.
The stakes are especially steep in a neighborhood where median listing prices range from roughly $1.99 million to $2.21 million, while larger luxury homes and unaffected coastal properties can command considerably more.
