(OPINION) If the ground under your feet is moving “up to 10 inches a week”, that might be a sign that it is time to relocate. What is currently taking place in Rancho Palos Verdes is perhaps the most extreme example of the geophysical instability plaguing much of the state of California.
Rancho Palos Verdes is about 30 miles away from downtown Los Angeles, and the constant “land movement” in that community is busting gas lines, causing homes to sink, and creating enormous cracks in the roads. If you were to walk through Rancho Palos Verdes right now, you would see that it currently looks like something out of a science fiction movie.
The ground has been moving in that area for quite some time, but in recent months the rate of movement has accelerated significantly. On Monday, authorities announced that another 105 homes would have their power cut off because emergency repairs are required…
More than 100 additional homes in Rancho Palos Verdes will have their power cut because of worsening landslides in the area, city officials said Monday.
This time, 105 of the 270 homes in the Seaview neighborhood will see the lights turned off as of 7 p.m. Monday, officials said. The shifting earth puts electrical equipment at risk and could spark a wildfire among other dangers if power lines are electrified, officials said.
The day before that, authorities shut off the power to 140 other homes… This is the second power shut-off in as many days in the area, a peninsula about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles famous for its sea breezes, gorgeous views, and expensive homes.
On Sunday, officials shut off power to 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes, about a mile up the coast. In that case, officials also issued an evacuation warning, meaning residents had to prepare to leave should they be ordered to do so.
What we are witnessing is absolutely insane.
This is one of the most beautiful areas of the entire state, but the constant geophysical instability is making it extremely difficult for people to live there.
According to city council member David Bradley, the ground is now moving “up to 10 inches a week”… “The movement has accelerated dramatically over the last 12 months, where some areas are moving up to 10 inches a week,” said city council member David Bradley. “You can almost see the ground move.”
How can you ever feel secure if the ground all around you is constantly moving? On Tuesday, California Governor Gavin Newsom finally declared a state of emergency…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency on Tuesday for the city of Rancho Palos Verdes amid the ongoing land movement threatening hundreds of homes.
The proclamation, issued early Tuesday afternoon, comes as the city works frantically to mitigate the damage from the slow-motion natural disaster, which has displaced many residents and caused officials to shut off electricity indefinitely to hundreds of homes in the community.
The truth is that a state of emergency should have been declared a long time ago. The entire community is slowly but surely being pushed into the ocean.
As I discussed in a previous article, a “stunning new stretch of shoreline” has been created because so much of the ground in Rancho Palos Verdes has been dumped into the ocean…
Even still, months after the movement began, earth continues to shift, creating an unexpected and stunning new stretch of shoreline near Rancho Palos Verdes.
“Somebody said, ‘Oh, you know there’s a new beach.’ It’s not really a beach yet,” said city geologist Mike Phipps. “A beach typically has sand on it. This is just literally landslide debris, a lot of rocks being pushed up and out of the surf.”
It didn’t take years for this to happen. According to CBS News, there is an “astonishing” difference when viewing photographs of the shoreline “pre-2024 and six months later”…
A few month’s difference is astonishing when viewing side-by-side photos of the shoreline pre-2024 and six months later, with a few hundred feet of new rocky shore that formed as the land continues to move, piling up under the water’s edge.
“What’s happening is, the ground is rising up and coming up, right through the ocean and lifting it up out of the ocean,” Phipps said.
So why is all of this important? In 2024, there has been a tremendous amount of seismic activity all over the “Ring of Fire” which runs roughly along the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean.
Of course the entire California coastline sits directly along the “Ring of Fire”. In just the last 7 days, there have been more than 900 earthquakes in California and Nevada.
Thankfully, “the Big One” has not materialized yet, but scientists assure us that it is eventually coming… The infamous but elusive possibility of a devastatingly large earthquake known as “The Big One” always comes to mind when a significant quake strikes in California.
But there’s actually several devastating quakes that will eventually hit the state. The USGS estimates that within the next three decades, there’s about a 46% chance an earthquake of magnitude 7 will hit in the Los Angeles area, and a 51% chance it will happen in the Bay Area. The chances of a 7.5 magnitude quake are 31% in the Los Angeles area and 20% in the San Francisco area in the next 30 years. (CONTINUE)
