A landslide in the Rancho Palos Verdes area of Los Angeles destroyed twelve homes on Saturday night, as residents were given 20 minutes to evacuate with as many of their belongings as they could muster quickly.
The Los Angeles Times reported:
Twelve homes were evacuated in Rolling Hills Estates on Saturday night after the ground shifted, leaving major cracks and some structures “visibly leaning,” officials said.
…
Residents of the affected homes “were told they had 20 minutes to get their belongings and get out,” [Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice] Hahn said at a noon press conference Sunday at the site, where she was joined by Rolling Hills Estates Mayor Britt Huff and officials from the county fire and public works departments.
She said a fissure, or crack in the earth’s surface, was winding its way between the affected homes.
The Los Angeles Daily News noted that the problem was discovered on Saturday afternoon after a resident called the fire department to report a water leak. The cause has yet to be determined, though heavy winter rains could have been a factor.
The Times notes that a landslide complex that had been dormant for nearly 5,000 yeas became active 67 years ago, threatening local infrastructure and causing local roads to become roller coasters that require intensive annual maintenance.
The Daily News explained:
Rancho Palos Verdes, meanwhile, spends about $1 million per year to resurface a portion of Palos Verdes Drive South that is continually shifting and cracking.
That stretch of road is in a 240-acre southern section of Rancho Palos Verdes known as the Portuguese Bend Landslide area.
Landslides have always been a problem there. But in 1956, the county extended Crenshaw Boulevard to the coast, according to an RPV press release earlier this year. That exacerbated the issue.
Today, the Portuguese Bend Landslide section of RPV is the most active landslide area in North America, according to city officials, moving at a rate of as much as eight feet each year.
Sixteen people were affected by the landslide, including several distraught homeowners.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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