The ground beneath Portuguese Bend is accelerating again, with Rancho Palos Verdes officials now measuring shifts of more than an inch per week across the ritziest coastal stretch.
City crews have watched the wealthy enclave’s hillside lurch faster than it did in August, a troubling uptick that arrives just as meteorologists warn a super El Niño could drench Southern California in coming weeks. The acceleration follows a mid-October battering from tropical storm-fueled waves that chewed away at the coastline and deepened existing fissures.
Some of the chasms now gape a dozen feet across and plunge 20 feet deep, scarring a landscape once prized for postcard views of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. The scenery remains, but the terrain beneath million-dollar homes has been ripped apart by the slow-motion collapse.
For decades, the hillside moved relatively little. That changed when above-average rainfall in recent years sent portions sliding as fast as a foot per week, a dramatic escalation that shattered the area’s stability. The pace has since eased partially thanks to wells installed by the city to suck water from the ground, though officials acknowledge the underlying geology likely cannot be stopped altogether.
Recent weather offered a brief reprieve. Winter preparations, including filling large fissures, “fared well” during recent rainfall, city officials said. Palos Verdes Drive South, the roadway cutting through the slide zone that typically floods during storms, also avoided needing pump trucks this time around.
But the all-clear remains distant. The land is moving faster than before, the hillside stays scarred, and no permanent fix has emerged for a community staring down another potentially soggy season.
The financial stakes sit especially steep here. Median listing prices in the neighborhood range from roughly $1.99 million to $2.21 million, while larger luxury homes and unaffected coastal properties command considerably more. Each fresh shift threatens not just views but foundations worth seven figures.
The current acceleration caps a brutal cycle for the enclave. After the foot-per-week surges of prior years, the inch-per-week pace now measured represents what officials might consider improved conditions — yet still signals ground too unstable for comfort. The wells continue pumping, the cracks await filling, and the Pacific keeps pressing at the base of a hillside that shows no sign of settling.
What comes next hinges on rainfall. A super El Niño pattern threatens to supercharge winter storms across the region, and for terrain already water-logged and shifting, additional saturation could worsen the slide or trigger new acceleration. The city has prepared what it can, but the geology of Portuguese Bend operates on its own timeline.