February Rain Accelerates Rancho Palos Verdes Land Movement

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In Rancho Palos Verdes, a new assessment shows that parts of the Portuguese Bend landslide complex have moved around 1.5 to 3.5 feet after February’s storms. The acceleration is about 2.2 times more since it was last assessed in January in some places.

What does this mean for homes in the area? Rancho Palos Verdes city geologist Mike Phipps said that currently there are no homes at risk of being red-tagged.

Phipps added that if the Wayfarers Chapel had not voluntarily closed down its doors in February, the buildings on the complex would have been red-tagged because the land movement is rapidly deteriorating conditions on the property.

Is it all bad news? In the Klondike Canyon landslide area, the land moved around 6 to 12 inches in the last two months, 1.3 times more than the last measurements in October and January.

The rate that it is moving is encouraging, Phipps said, because it shows that some of the mitigation measures put in place are working.