‘Astonishing’ collapse sends Rolling Hills Estates homes toward canyon floor

Multiple homes in a Rolling Hills Estates neighborhood had slid down the hillside by Tuesday as a major landslide continued to push them into a canyon.

Officials and residents said they were stunned at watching the homes fall down the hill. Some dipped below what remained of their driveways, almost completely hidden from the road they previously lined.

“Just shock,” resident Katie Schwartz, 57, said Monday, taking in the escalating damage. “It just changes your whole life.”

Garage doors were almost flattened, roofs had caved in, and massive crevices exposed beams and pipes. Twelve homes had been evacuated and red-tagged; many of them were already lost.

“They’re absolutely collapsing on top of themselves, the roofs are at ground level,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said Monday. “The force of gravity is taking them. … These homeowners have lost their homes and, really, the land that the home sits on is also gone.”

Hahn first visited the street late Saturday and said she could hear the “snap, crackle, pop” of shifting homes, but the movement was minor. By Sunday, the homes had fallen six to 10 feet down the ravine. Monday’s damage was “astonishing,” she said.

“There’s nothing we can do, I’ve been told, to stop what’s happening,” Hahn said. “That’s why it’s wait-and-see at that point. Waiting for the homes to fall.”

She said she reached out to Gov. Gavin Newsom about the situation Monday but hadn’t yet heard back.

Rolling Hills Estates Mayor Britt Huff said the city planned to declare an emergency at its Tuesday council meeting.

Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said Monday evening that his crews continued to monitor the still-moving ground. Although they had documented damage on all 12 red-tagged units, no other nearby homes had yet been affected, he said. At least eight homes have been completely ruined in the collapse.

Firefighters will remain on site until the shifting ceases, Marrone said.

“We don’t know how long these homes are going to continue to move,” he said. Officials are “waiting to see what the determination is going to be.”

It’s still unclear what caused the ongoing landslide in the community, which is on the northern side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, facing Torrance. A geologist or soil expert hasn’t yet been out to the site, officials said.

Pete Goodrich, a Rolling Hills Estates building official, said geologists will inspect the site and decide what can be done.

The land movement “could be due to the extensive rains that we’ve had … but we don’t know,” Goodrich said Sunday.

Huff said officials were surprised by the destruction.

“This neighborhood was built in 1978, and it’s been solid for 45 years,” Huff said. “So we’re very much in shock by what is happening here.”

The Palos Verdes Peninsula has long been prone to landslides. A dormant landslide complex has shaped the area for hundreds of thousands of years. It was reactivated 67 years ago and is threatening to destroy homes and infrastructure.

In the 1980s, land movement in the Flying Triangle — a sloping, sea-view area of Rolling Hills — destroyed several expensive homes.

In 1997, workers from 18 small businesses evacuated two buildings in a Rolling Hills Estates office park as the walls began to warp, windows cracked and sidewalks buckled.

The most dramatic slide currently in the peninsula is affecting Portuguese Bend, an area on the south side named after a whaling operation, now known for its natural beauty and native vegetation.