Residents who live on the Palos Verdes Peninsula are on edge, worried about the unstable ground beneath their homes some 10 weeks after landslides destroyed nearly a dozen homes in Rolling Hills Estates.
Two homes on the peninsula have already been red tagged, meaning the residences are currently uninhabitable and the future is uncertain for a number of other homeowners.
“We’re all worried, we’re all calling for help,” resident Eva Albuja told KTLA’s Rick Chambers.
For many others in the Sea View neighborhood of Palos Verdes, that feeling is understandable. The ground under some of the homes has moved, with huge cracks appearing on some properties and the streets and sidewalks shifting.
“It’s rapid and we’re worried,” Albujua, who lives just down the block from the two red-tagged homes, said. “We’re worried about our homes. Everyone is very upset. We’re all talking about it every night and we don’t want to leave our homes. We’ve been here over 20 years.”
One theory for the shifting Palos Verdes landscape is that rain-saturated soil is sliding, forcing old water pipes to burst exacerbating the problem.
Some residents fear that a Rolling Hills-type disaster is a possibility in Sea View.
“That was 24 hours from a little tiny crack to falling over a ravine,” L.A. County Board Supervisor Janice Hahn said of the devastation in Rolling Hills.
Hahn was in Sea View this Wednesday night to look at the damage and is aware that time is critical and that homeowners are worried.
“It’s devastating to think your home, which is all people have, is now crumbling and collapsing. It’s devastating,” she told KTLA.
Residents have already voiced their concerns to city leaders and local utility companies are said to be dealing with the problem. Whether they can keep more homes from crumbling is yet to be seen.
Supervisor Hahn said that county officials are already in touch with city leaders and that assistance is being offered. The local city council will meet again in two weeks, and it’s unknown if the situation will worsen by then.
