In pricey Palos Verdes, the ocean view is great — until your house slides into a canyon
The Palos Verdes Peninsula — a land of rolling hills, jagged cliffs and sweeping views of the city and ocean — boasts some of the most beautiful terrain in Southern California.
It's also long proven to be some of the most dangerous.
For hundreds of thousands of years, the peninsula has been plagued by an ancient landslide complex that slowly reshapes the topography. The earth lurches and warps, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, destroying homes and infrastructure along the way.
The latest damage was dealt to Rolling Hills Estates, where a major ground shift led to 12 homes being evacuated after a fissure snaked its way through the neighborhood. Foundations cracked, walls collapsed and some homes were visibly leaning as the hillside upon which they were perched slowly descended into a canyon.
Land movement is a stubborn, if periodic reality for much of California, particularly the coastal hills of the South Bay and Orange County.
, and have dealt with destructive slides. In the 1920s, a handful of homes. A mile south of Rolling Hills Estates, the city of Rancho Palos Verdes to avoid a similar fate.
