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Nick Mardesic and his family are living off the power grid, so light at night comes from a flashlight, and a hot meal and shower require driving several miles to his parents’ home.
The family is not in a rugged location, but rather on a scenic peninsula on the edge of Los Angeles. And they aren’t off the grid by choice. Their power and gas were cut because worsening landslides from two years of heavy rain are threatening to tear apart scores of multimillion-dollar homes perched over the Pacific Ocean.
Mardesic has been fighting for months to keep his home standing. Sections of his front yard have sunk about 3.5 feet (1 meter). Deep fissures snake across the walls of his house and a piece of dry wall fell from his ceiling. The sidewalk and one end of his driveway have caved, creating a gaping hole that has exposed an underground water pipe. His bedroom is on the verge of collapse, he said, so he has been placing wood on a beam under the house and jacks it up. In the past five months, he has spent about $50,000 to keep his home elevated.
“It’s something you see out of a movie,” he said outside the home he shares with his wife and two children, ages 3 and 1. “It’s almost unbelievable … just watching your house sink away.”
The landslides are the latest catastrophe in California, already burdened by worsening wildfires and extreme weather that has swung from heat waves to torrential rains that have caused flooding and mudslides in the past year.
In Rancho Palos Verdes, entire homes have collapsed or been torn apart. Walls have shifted and large fissures have appeared on the ground. Evacuation warnings are in effect and swaths of the community have had their power and gas turned off. Gas service was cut to more residents on Thursday and more were expected Friday. Others are contending with temporary water shutdowns to fix sewer lines.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Tuesday.
Jill Carlton, who has lived in the community for nearly 30 years, said it is good the problem has finally gotten the governor's attention.
“They’ve been pressuring him for a long time and hopefully he’ll come down and actually visit us," Carlton said, but she is disappointed "there’s still no aid to the individuals."
The declaration instead opens state resources, such as emergency personnel, equipment and services. In an email, the city of Rancho Palos Verdes said it continues to urge state leaders and agencies to ask President Joe Biden to declare a federal disaster, which would trigger resources and possible individual help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Nearly 70 years ago, the Portuguese Bend landslide in Rancho Palos Verdes was triggered with the construction of a road through the area, which sits atop an ancient landslide. It destroyed 140 homes at the time and the land has moved ever since.
But the once slow-moving landslides began to rapidly accelerate after torrential rains drenched Southern California over the past two years. The land that once was sliding at an average of several inches per year is now moving between 9 to 12 inches (22.8 to 30.48 centimeters) weekly.
The rapid movement forced the dismantling earlier this year of Wayfarers Chapel, a historic landmark designed by Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, Lloyd Wright. Scenic roads that wind through the city have been buckling, too. Signs warn motorists of dips and the shifting, disfigured terrain.
“Bicycles and motorcycles use extreme caution,” reads one sign. “Rough road” and “Slide area,” read others.
Mike Phipps, the city's geologist, said the average rate of movement has slightly slowed but is still about 4 feet (1.2 meters) a month. “It's still significant movement. It’s just, we’ve kind of reached full speed and are cruising right now,” he said.
Some residents believe leaks are to blame for the destruction in their community. They argue multiple burst water and sewer pipes that were not quickly or adequately fixed saturated the ground and contributed to the land movement.
Residents recently filed a lawsuit against the city, its water provider and others, alleging in part that negligence and their failure to act were “substantial factors” in the landslide acceleration “and the resulting damage to the homes and lives of the residents.”
The city said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
Jeffrey R. Knott, emeritus professor in geological sciences at California State University, Fullerton likened the argument to the chicken or the egg dilemma.
“Did the landslide move and cause the pipe to break? Or did the pipe break and then cause the landslide to move?" he said. "It’s an extraordinarily difficult thing to prove."
Water leaks would contribute to the acceleration, but their significance is unknown, Knott added.
Last year, the city received a $23.3 million grant from FEMA for a project that officials hoped would slow the land movement by removing trapped water underground and stop rain from percolating into it in the future. But crews recently discovered a deeper and wider landslide.
“It’s like a freight train going down the hill. It’s billions of tons of earth,” Phipps said. "Trying to stop that is extremely challenging.”
Mayor John Cruikshank said finding funding for solutions poses challenges, as does preparing for the forthcoming rainy season.
“The climate is changing, and we’ve got to be more resilient," he said. "We can’t always rely on old systems like above-ground wire and below-ground natural gas.”
In the meantime, residents are left with difficult decisions.
Those with collapsed or severely damaged homes have had to abandon them. Others, like Carlton’s neighbors, left after their utilities were shut off indefinitely. Some are relying on generators to keep the lights on and propane to cook.
Others, like Mardesic, are hoping for relocation assistance and said that without help they are stuck and unable to afford anything in Southern California's pricey housing market. Mardesic's house was valued at about $2.3 million before the damage, he said.
“What can we do but keep fixing our home and try to stay here?" said Mardesic, a maintenance supervisor. “We have nowhere to go.”
For now, his family plans to move into the pool house in the back that is less at risk of falling down the hillside.
