Palos Verdes, California officials say as much as 300 feet of coastal bluff fell toward the ocean on the evening of September 27. It’s the latest such slide in the affluent coastal community littered with waves along the peninsula, including the notorious Lunada Bay just a mile away from the area in which Saturday’s incident took place.
In February 2024, a massive storm dumped more than a foot of rain in the Los Angeles area, causing 475 mudslides throughout L.A. County and inflicting as much as $11 billion in damages and losses across the state, according to Accuweather. In Palos Verdes, the effects of that storm seemed to throw the already unstable ground along the peninsula into overdrive with shifts as big as one foot per week, buckling streets, with buildings and homes enduring structural damage as a result. Local officials didn’t directly link that storm to this weekend’s slide, but it highlights the constant threat of massive erosion events like this at almost any time. Geologists are reportedly investigating what caused this recent slide and calling it an “isolated incident,” according to ABC.
In October of 2024, NASA collected radar images of the region to monitor the direction and pace of landslides. That study was focused on Portuguese Bend, which is south of the area along Marguerite Drive, where Saturday’s slide occurred.
“In effect, we’re seeing that the footprint of land experiencing significant impacts has expanded, and the speed is more than enough to put human life and infrastructure at risk,” Alexander Handwerger, the JPL landslide scientist who performed the analysis, said in a statement.
The city has reportedly asked that fishermen and others stay clear of the shoreline in the area near Marguerite Drive, Eyewitness News is reporting.
“The coastal bluff essentially dropped approximately 30 to 40 feet, and it’s in a crescent shape, and that crescent shape is approximately about 300-feet wide,” said city manager Ara Mihranian.
