Worst possible update for millionaire homeowners whose mansions are slipping into the ocean

A ritzy Southern California enclave perched above the Pacific is once again on edge — as the ground beneath it won’t stop shifting.

Residents of the posh cliff side enclave of Rancho Palos Verdes are living a nightmare as a massive landslide accelerates, sinking dream homes and forcing local officials to even cut the power in certain areas to prevent the whole neighborhood from going up in sparks.

After a winter of heavy drenching, the Abalone Cove and Portuguese Bend landslides have picked up, leaving residents on edge and officials scrambling to keep the roads and homes from crumbling into the Pacific.

City Council leaders heard a grim update on Tuesday, which according to the latest data, shows the ground picking up speed. In Abalone Cove, the movement accelerated by 5%, now creeping in at 2.24 inches per week since January. In the Portuguese Bend neighborhood, it jumped by 7.1%, moving at 1.5 inches per week.

Across the active landslide boundary, movement has surged by 8.7% since January.

Heavy rainfall in November, December and January is to blame, with more rainwater that entered into the ground and resulted in a slight uptick in land movement, according to Rancho Palos Verdes City Manager, Ara Mihranian. The Peninsula has been hammered with 14.14 inches of rain this season–clocking in at 103% of the average.

City officials are now weighing whether to extend a local emergency declaration, along with a ban on bicycles and motorcycles along a crumbling stretch of Palos Verdes Drive South due to the road damage caused by the slides.

Officials have been issuing bimonthly land movement updates for years now, as the crisis drags on with no clear end in sight.

For residents in this affluent seaside community, these issues have been anything but abstract. The average prices for homes in the area is about $1.45 million, according to September data from Realtor.com.

Many of the homes have sweeping ocean views, and have been left damaged, destabilized or, in some cases, uninhabitable and without power.

The city launched an aggressive dewatering program designed to suck groundwater out of the hillside a few years ago, spending $65 million in funds to quell the movement. Since September 2024, the movement at certain points has decelerated by an average of 78%, per reports from city staff.

But that progress now appears fragile, and the cliffside crisis is far from over.

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