\n<\/p>\n
\u201cOK, don\u2019t step into the actual fissure. We don\u2019t actually know how deep it goes.\u201d In 2024, Eilen Stewart bought a house on a landslide. \u201cHonestly, we\u2019re priced out of a lot of the L.A. area. So when we saw this house in this amazing neighborhood \u2014 it\u2019s safe. It\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s got amazing school districts. I mean, it just seemed like this house is half the price that it should be. Of course, that\u2019s when we figured out that there\u2019s a reason that the house is this price.\u201d Land here was moving as much as a foot per week around that time. But this house seemed OK, so Eilen and her husband went for it, paying $1.3 million, a deal for coastal Palos Verdes, Calif. \u201cWe knew there was a landslide, but we made a calculated risk. And we\u2019ll see if it pays off or not.\u201d Parts of Palos Verdes have been inching towards the sea for decades, but heavy rainfall in recent years accelerated the landslide, cracking foundations and destroying homes. \u201cThis is probably one of the largest active landslides with homes on it in the entire United States, if not the world. It\u2019s almost like a giant raft that\u2019s moving on this real slippery layer at depth.\u201d \u201cThe movement has always been here. It\u2019s just been at an acceptable level. But once anything has started moving, it\u2019s very, very difficult to stop.\u201d \u201cFor longtime residents like Tim Kelly, who bought his home here in 1994, leaving would mean a massive financial hit. Landslides generally aren\u2019t covered by insurance. \u201cSo prior to the landslide, my house was \u2014 based on Zillow and Redfin and all those \u2014 was at approximately $2.1 million. It\u2019s been reassessed on the L.A. County tax rolls at $129,000. All right, guys. 7:01, we\u2019re late. We\u2019re late.\u201d With little choice but to stay put and a deep love for their neighborhood, Tim and a crew of dedicated neighbors are trying to slow down the landslide by drying it out. Every morning, they fire up generators for wells that pump water out of the ground. \u201cPutting in de-watering wells is one of the primary approaches to slow the slide down. And we\u2019ve seen a dramatic reduction in movement as a result of taking those measures. In some areas, we\u2019ve reduced the movement by almost 90 percent at its peak.\u201d Last winter was also less rainy than the two before, another factor. Gas and electricity were cut off to many in 2024, and residents have had to go off grid. Some families have left altogether for safety reasons. Nearly two years later, 172 homes are still disconnected from grid power, including Eilen\u2019s. Her land has also moved a lot since she moved in. \u201cWhen we first moved in, you could see maybe this much of the ocean. It was kind of a little tiny sliver. But all of those homes that are in front of us sunk down a good 10 feet. And part of the silver lining is that we have a much better view now.\u201d Eilen estimates she spent about $200,000 on landslide-related fixes, including picking up the house, placing it on steel beams and moving it away from the slide. But all of this might just be delaying the inevitable. \u201cYou\u2019re fighting nature, and what we see is that nature is changing with climate change and maybe more rainfall occurring in the future. We do have means and methods to tackle that. It\u2019s just very expensive.\u201d As of June this year, Palos Verdes will have spent about $65 million on landslide mitigation since 2022. Its entire annual city budget is about $40 million. \u201cWe\u2019re aggressively trying to get money from the state and federal government to be able to solve the problem and implement the solutions that we have. But we need more to keep going.\u201d At least 11 homes have sold in the landslide zone since 2024. Last summer, the city banned future new construction here. But anybody is still free to move in. \u201cIt\u2019s buyer beware, right, because you\u2019re coming into an area that the land is going to be moving forever. But if they want to then it\u2019s their choice.\u201d \u201cIf the house slid down the hill tomorrow, what would you do?\u201d \u201cI would put up a tent in that backyard and still live here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cOK, don\u2019t step into the actual fissure. We don\u2019t actually know how deep it goes.\u201d In 2024, Eilen Stewart bought a house on a landslide. \u201cHonestly, we\u2019re priced out of a lot of the L.A. area. So when we saw this house in this amazing neighborhood \u2014 it\u2019s safe. It\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s got amazing school<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46664,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[22565,13923],"class_list":{"0":"post-46663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-neighborhood","9":"tag-sinking"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}