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Landslides are destroying multimillion-dollar homes in CA, and are getting worse
The deep landslides beneath multi-million dollar homes in Rancho Palos Verdes moved at an almost glacial pace, until they didn’t.
This affluent coastal city in Southern California, around 30 miles south of Los Angeles, has long enticed people with its Pacific Ocean views and lush greenery. “It has weathered to a type of clay mineral that can expand and get slippery when it gets wet,” said Gary Griggs, distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California Santa Cruz. Cutting into slopes to flatten areas for houses or roads can weaken them and mountain-sides, making both unstable, said Ugur Öztürk, a landslide scientist at the University of Potsdam and the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.
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