State of Emergency Declared in California City amid Landslide Crisis: 'You Can Almost See the Ground Move'

Mar. 15, 2025

An aerial view shows damage resulting from ongoing land movement in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. on September 3, 2024.Photo:Mario Tama/Getty

Mario Tama/Getty

A state of emergency was declared in one Southern California city as landslides threaten homes and left hundreds without power.

On Tuesday, Sept. 3, California Gov.Gavin Newsomdeclared astate of emergency.

Per thePost,140 homes in the city’s Portuguese Bend neighborhood will be without power indefinitely, and 60 homes in the Seaview neighborhood will not have power for a minimum of one week.

Experts say the landslides follows two years of severe storms and rainfall, per NBC News, and that the Palos Verdes Peninsula the city sits on is composed of clay beds and weak rocks, which can prevent water from draining correctly.

And while the land beneath Rancho Palos Verdes has been moving for hundreds of years, Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles county supervisor, said that “the acceleration that’s happening currently is beyond what any of us could have foretold,” according toABC News.

PerCNN, council member David Bradley said that “the movement has accelerated dramatically over the last 12 months, where some areas are moving up to 10 inches a week.”

“You can almost see the ground move," Bradley added.

A person walks along landslide damage amid an ongoing land movement crisis in Rancho Palos Verdes, California on September 3, 2024.Mario Tama/Getty

Jonathan Godt, the U.S. Geological Service’s landslides hazards program coordinator, said it can take months or even years for the land to deform after periods of heavy precipitation, per NBC News.

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“For many of those places, it’s not a problem over a human lifespan or even multiple human generations because that’s just a blink of an eye from a geologic perspective,” Godt said. “But, there are instances where a series of heavy rainfall events, or shaking from earthquakes, or other geologic processes going on beneath our feet get those landslides moving again.”

Landslide damage amid an ongoing land movement crisis in Rancho Palos Verdes, California on September 3, 2024.Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times/Getty

Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times/Getty

“I think we’re all learning there is no playbook for an emergency like this one,”  Hahn said at a news conference on Monday, Sept. 1, according toThe Guardian. “What we do know is many families are struggling, are suffering, are feeling great anxiety about what is happening. They are watching their homes – they are watching their streets – crumble around them.”

source: people.com