A running record of land movement data, city actions, utility news, and program developments — newest first. Entries are compiled from City of Rancho Palos Verdes communications, public meetings, and news reporting.
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi announced $5 million in state funding for Rancho Palos Verdes' landslide response. It is a one-time reimbursement for stabilization costs the City already paid in fiscal year 2025–26, not new money for future projects. The scale it's measured against:
Sources: Patch (Sept. 22) · Daily Breeze (Sept. 22). The winter-readiness work this money helps backfill is described in the September 9 and July 29 entries below.
Separate from the question of re-energizing Portuguese Bend, SCE has started construction on tension-relief work on its infrastructure serving the landslide area, beginning September 1, 2026 in the Rolling Hills area. The schedule: work through late November, a holiday-season pause, then resumption from January through the second quarter of 2027 — subject to weather and environmental restrictions protecting the California gnatcatcher.
The City's August 2026 survey delivers the most encouraging numbers of the entire emergency: the active-area average fell to 0.99 inches per week, down 9.8% from July and under 1 inch per week for the first time since October 2023 — the month the acceleration began.
Sources: City land movement update · Random Lengths News (Sept. 9) · Sept. 15 staff report.
The City Council approved sending the letter to state lawmakers and Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara asking them to consider creating a basic landslide insurance program modeled on the California Earthquake Authority or FAIR Plan — the first formal move to close a gap in which effectively no landslide-area homeowner can buy coverage (zero of 62 respondents had it in the City's 2024 survey). The decision followed staff's finding that a joint powers authority cannot legally insure private homeowners.
Sources: Patch · follow-up coverage: LAist · Patch AM (Sept. 11) · background in the August 27 entry below.
The four peninsula cities — Rancho Palos Verdes, Palos Verdes Estates, Rolling Hills, and Rolling Hills Estates — announced that FEMA has approved their Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan, the first covering the entire peninsula. FEMA approved the plan in June after a year-plus effort with public outreach and multi-agency coordination; the plan also includes the ACLAD and KCLAD abatement districts. It assesses the hazards the peninsula faces — landslides, earthquakes, wildfire, strong winds, heat — identifies strategies to reduce their impacts, and, critically, keeps the participating agencies eligible for state and federal hazard-mitigation funding (an approved plan is a prerequisite for grants like the HMGP dollars behind the buyouts and remediation project).
Coverage: Random Lengths News · Daily Breeze. Plan documents at PVPready.gov.
Ahead of the September 1 Council meeting (7 p.m., McTaggart Hall, with Zoom and livestream), staff released an informational report on options for getting landslide insurance to residents — a market that effectively doesn't exist, since standard policies and the FAIR Plan both exclude earth movement. The findings:
Sources: Random Lengths News (Aug. 27) · Patch (Sept. 1) · agenda materials at the City's agenda portal. Update: approved September 1 — see the entry above.
City Manager Ara Mihranian sent a letter to Southern California Edison president Steven D. Powell requesting an in-person meeting on "restoration and long-term reliability of electrical service in the landslide area." With service already restored in Seaview and the Portuguese Bend Beach Club, the Portuguese Bend Community Association area remains the last still de-energized — households there have been running on solar and generators since the September 2024 shutoffs. The letter's case: movement that peaked near a foot per week at the height of the acceleration now averages 1.1 inches per week, and the dewatering wells have removed over half a billion gallons of groundwater — enough, the City notes, to cover 58 football fields 10 feet deep. The number to watch: SCE has previously said movement must stay sustained below 1 inch per week before it will consider re-energization — tantalizingly close to today's 1.1.
The City also put numbers on what operating without grid power costs: roughly $53,000 a month in generator costs for the dewatering wells and about $12,000 a month to run the PBCA area's sewer system. SCE responded that it is reviewing the information internally and will coordinate setting up a discussion in the near future.
Source: City Land Movement Updates (Aug. 26, 2026) · follow-up: Random Lengths News · SCE's landslide-area page: energized.edison.com/rpv.
New reporting spotlights what a strong El Niño could mean for the landslide area: forecasters see potential for a heavy-rain winter, and the City is racing to finish its defenses first. The complex is still creeping at about 1.1 inches per week in its active interior — 60% slower than a year ago — with the deep dewatering wells (over half a billion gallons removed) credited for much of the slowdown. The test ahead: whether dewatering and winterization can hold those gains through a wet season like the ones that triggered the 2023–24 acceleration.
Coverage: Daily Breeze (Aug. 19) · Patch (Aug. 20). The City's preparation work plan — fissure filling, canyon liners, drainage upgrades, due by mid-October — is detailed in the July 29 entry below.
L.A. County Sanitation Districts crews are working along Palos Verdes Drive South between Schooner Drive and the eastern entrance of the landslide area, roughly 4–11 a.m. Work took place August 12–13, with another window announced for August 19–20; expect delays and consider an alternate route. The work is part of the Districts' emergency project to bypass about 2,000 feet of sewer line buried along PV Drive South north of Schooner Drive — installing an above-ground bypass pipe because land movement has compromised the buried line.
Sources: City traffic alert (Aug. 19–20) · LACSD Palos Verdes Action Plan.
At its August 4 meeting, the City Council received the latest landslide emergency update — dewatering wells past half a billion gallons removed, movement 60% slower than a year ago — and took three actions:
Staff report and video on the City's agenda portal; summary in the City's 2026 updates archive.
The City's community update detailed preparations for the 2026–27 rainy season, targeted for completion by mid-October: "A work plan is underway to prevent water infiltration into the ground by filling fissures, resetting protective liner and sandbags in canyons, installing drainage improvements, and strengthening existing winterization measures." Staff briefed the Council on these efforts — including forecast El Niño conditions — at the August 4 meeting. Keeping rain out of the slide mass is the flip side of pumping groundwater out: both starve the deep clay layers that drive movement.
Source: City Land Movement Updates (July 29, 2026).
The City Council voted to place a Public Safety/City Services measure (since designated Measure RS: a hotel-tax increase from 10% to 13%, projected at about $2.2 million a year) on the November 3, 2026 General Municipal Election ballot. The City's framing ties it directly to the landslide: helping "properly prepare for future landslides and other natural disasters" while maintaining public safety patrols, emergency preparedness, and street maintenance. The fiscal backdrop is stark — the City projects it will have spent approximately $72.1 million of its own funds on landslide response and repairs by June 2027, with more costs expected in future years.
Official measure page: Measure RS · details, FAQs, and the community presentation: City measure page · rpvca.gov/elections.
Early-July survey data shows the landslide complex moving 60% slower than one year ago, despite a slightly above-average rainy season. Average movement in areas still moving within the active boundary fell to 1.1 inches per week, a 15% decrease since May.
The City's program update laid out exactly where the FEMA/Cal OES voluntary buyouts stand:
The Council directed staff to continue developing a new Geologic Hazard Abatement District (GHAD) covering the Portuguese Bend landslide — a third district alongside the Abalone Cove (ACLAD) and Klondike Canyon (KCLAD) districts formed in 1981 — and to return in September with a more detailed cost analysis, including discussion of potentially combining districts. Estimated startup costs of roughly $500,000 were part of the discussion, along with two of the main arguments for a GHAD: its work is exempt from CEQA review (sparing potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of delay) and a GHAD carries certain immunity from liability for abating a geologic hazard. A GHAD is funded by assessments on properties within its boundary and can own and operate mitigation measures like dewatering wells.
Next step: staff will negotiate fees with a consulting firm to assist with formation, with a professional services agreement coming back to the Council for approval — tentatively September 2026 — alongside the more detailed cost analysis. Further Council direction and public input will follow as the process advances.
Sources: Random Lengths News (July 9, 2026) · Daily Breeze (July 14, 2026) · City Council agenda materials via the City's agenda portal.
According to the City's July 2026 posting of FEMA's Cumulative Final Public Notice (Landslide Stabilization), FEMA intends to provide assistance for a package of projects including landslide stabilization, property acquisition and demolition, and permanent power for dewatering wells. The notice states the City "proposes to acquire and demolish 45 residential properties" in the Portuguese Bend, Seaview, and Portuguese Bend Beach Club neighborhoods, with the land deed-restricted as open space in perpetuity after demolition.
Important distinction: this 45-property figure is a proposed total for the overall mitigation package — it is separate from, and larger than, the 27 homes currently selected under buyout Rounds 1 and 2 (plus the pending Round 3 application for roughly 8 more). It signals the potential ultimate scope, not homes currently chosen.
Note: the City's original newsflash posting (early July 2026) is no longer live, likely following the close of the public-comment period; this summary reflects the official notice text as posted. If you have a copy of the notice, please send it to contact@pvlandslide.com.
A City financial update put Rancho Palos Verdes' landslide response at $64.4 million from October 2022 through the end of June 2026 — rivaling the scale of the city's entire annual operating budget — including running its fleet of deep dewatering wells. (Earlier spring reporting had projected about $61.5M for the same period.) The city has been denied FEMA emergency aid funds and has appealed, and projections show city reserves running out by the 2027–28 fiscal year without new state or federal help. The scale of the gap: long-term stabilization has been estimated at roughly $150 million — nearly four times the city's ~$40 million annual operating budget (LAist).
On the grant front, the City's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program application for the Portuguese Bend Landslide Remediation Project has grown to $48.7 million (from $40M, after an updated cost-benefit analysis), and the Council raised its committed local match from $10 million (authorized August 2025) to $12.1 million to stay competitive — the match being a real strain on a city this size.
Sources: City financial update · LAist · Spectrum News.
Congressional community-project funding delivered roughly $2.29 million for landslide mitigation — reported as the first federal funds directed to the landslide since the 2023 local emergency declaration — split evenly between the two abatement districts:
Reported by the Los Angeles Times; appropriations documentation via Rep. Ted Lieu's community project funding requests.
Roughly three years after the rains that supercharged the slide, reporting confirmed that landslide damage has closed dozens of trails in the Portuguese Bend area of the Palos Verdes Nature Reserve, with around 16 miles of trails damaged — open fissures make some routes impassable even for city crews, and full restoration is considered unlikely. Heed posted closures; ground near fissures can be unstable even when it looks solid.
Details: LAist and the City's trail conditions page.
The Palos Verdes Reef Restoration Project — an artificial rocky reef built in 2020 off the peninsula specifically to replace habitat buried and scoured by decades of landslide-driven sedimentation — is working. NOAA-supported monitoring found fish biomass up more than 150% just four years after construction, on reefs deliberately built tall enough to avoid reburial by future slide sediment. A rare piece of good news at the shoreline end of the landslide story, highlighted in recent Daily Breeze coverage.
Sources: NOAA Fisheries · SCMI on the Daily Breeze coverage.
The chapel that opened on Mother's Day 1951 marked 75 years with anniversary events in May 2026 — dismantled and safely in storage, with its board's "Rebuilding the Wright Legacy" campaign fundraising toward a rebuild estimated at nearly $20 million at the Battery Barnes site next to Rancho Palos Verdes City Hall. Plans include the reconstructed chapel plus a visitors center, museum, archival center, café, and gardens. A groundbreaking target of fall 2027 has been reported, contingent on fundraising and the transfer of the federal (U.S. Coast Guard) land to the City — supported by legislation from Rep. Ted Lieu.
Follow the chapel's official updates.
More than two years after the storm-driven acceleration, homeowners selected for buyouts were still awaiting next steps. The city has been selected for a $42 million FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant (Round 1, 22 homes) and a $10.16 million grant (Round 2), but cannot purchase homes until FEMA formally awards the grants. In February, the Council announced up to 13 additional homes might be purchased with newly available Cal OES disaster relief funds. (This potential expansion was later formalized as the Round 3 application for roughly 8 homes — see the July 9, 2026 entry.)
A two-mile stretch of Palos Verdes Drive South through the landslide zone closed overnight (8 p.m.–6 a.m.) February 11–13 for repair work, finishing early. The City continues regular inspections and repaving of the constantly shifting roadway, and is developing a larger PV Drive South regrading project that may require temporary closures.
LAist reporting put faces on what the buyout program's pre-award limbo means for selected owners: mortgages still come due on homes that are red-tagged and unlivable, and the program requires that homes not be in active foreclosure proceedings to remain eligible. One profiled Portuguese Bend couple — who had spent $80,000 of their own money cutting their house in half to slow the damage before it was red-tagged — faced a lender demand for roughly $44,000 to bring their mortgage current, a foreclosure threat that could have disqualified them from the very buyout they were waiting on. With the city warning that federal funds could take years to arrive, similar squeezes may face other selected owners.
Reporting: LAist (Dec. 16, 2025). If you're struggling with a mortgage on a slide-damaged home, contact your lender early and in writing — see the Resident Guide.
A roughly 300–400-foot section of coastal bluff off Marguerite Drive near Palos Verdes Drive West — on the peninsula's west side, roughly four miles from and entirely separate from the Greater Portuguese Bend complex — sloughed about 50–60 feet toward the coastline. No injuries or evacuations; several backyards were damaged but no homes were threatened, and the City's geologist monitored the area, which was subsequently assessed as static. A reminder that the peninsula's bluffs can move outside the main landslide too.
Sources: City update · KTLA · L.A. Times · Daily Breeze · AP (archived).
The City Council adopted Ordinance No. 692, permanently prohibiting new residential construction — including home additions — in the Greater Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex, effective September 18, 2025. The zone covers the Seaview, Portuguese Bend Community Association, and Portuguese Bend Beach Club neighborhoods: roughly 400 homes and 130 vacant, privately owned lots, with boundaries updated to match the expanded limits of recent movement. Owners may still repair, restore, and replace homes within their existing footprint (swimming-pool repair and replacement is excluded), and previously granted new-construction permits were revoked. The permanent ordinance replaced the emergency moratorium in place since October 2023.
Details: City Landslide Area Development Regulations · LAist.
Aggressive dewatering, hydraugers, winterization work, and a drier stretch brought dramatic deceleration across the complex during 2025:
Back-to-back historic wet seasons in 2023 and 2024 saturated the peninsula. The four landslides — long creeping at inches per year in places — merged into broader, faster movement across roughly 700 acres. Fissures opened across the Portuguese Bend Reserve and neighborhoods; Palos Verdes Drive South buckled repeatedly; the City declared a local emergency; and in February 2024 the landmark Wayfarers Chapel closed as its structures twisted, before being carefully dismantled for future reconstruction.
Older events are covered in History & Geology. Spot an error or have something we missed? Email contact@pvlandslide.com.
When significant new information is posted here — survey data, council actions, program news — we'll send a short email so you don't have to keep checking back.
Your address is used only to send you site updates — never shared or sold. Reply "unsubscribe" to any email to stop.