Standing on the far left corner of his three-acre lot in Rolling Hills, James Bayliss, 40, points to a crack he’s been monitoring in the yard since August. It started at Quail Ridge Road, just above his property, and when he first noticed it it was about 240 feet long and an inch wide – but now it runs more than 450 feet past his property, And one section is approximately 16 inches wide.
He is worried about what this distortion of land could mean for the house on the land he co-owns with his 80-year-old mother Ann Bayliss. She lives with her two Australian shepherds in a one-story house that recently had its natural gas shut off due to land movement.
“We just want to know what’s going on so we can make decisions about our property,” said Bellis, who lives in Lake Arrowhead.
he has seen Destruction It has spread to Portuguese Bend and its surrounding areas in Rancho Palos Verdes, just down the valley, and wants to know what their competition is.
Yet he is still waiting for concrete answers.
so there are more than that 600 property owners in Rolling HillsUnlike the 1980s, when land movement Flying Triangle landslide area destroyed many houses thereresident-run community association in charge A geologist has recently been appointed to maintain much of the gated city.
As a result, for at least a month, residents did not get a clear picture of how fast the land was slipping near their homes.
The extremely private town of Rolling Hills was pushed into very public, growing emergency Due to increased ground disturbance in parts of the Palos Verdes Peninsula in mid-September, when Southern California Edison and Southern California Gas It was decided to cut service indefinitely Dozens of homes there — in addition to about 250 properties in nearby Rancho Palos Verdes that were razed week ago,
Reflected in the window at left is James Bellis and his mother Ann Bellis who recently saw their natural gas shut off due to land movement in the rolling hills. Service was restored after about two weeks.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
Ann Bellis was one of those dealing with the shutoff, going without gas (and hot water) for nearly two weeks before her service was restored. Still, she told the Times she was lucky, because many of her neighbors across the street and in her community still lack both electricity and gas service.
“I loved camping so I didn’t mind. I just boiled water and all that,” he said.
Announcing the shutoff, SoCalGas While pointing to recent water-main fragmentation and land movements edison It said the “rapid increase in cracks” meant the company could no longer “minimize the public safety risk of fallen poles and wires in the area.”
Rolling Hills Mayor Pro Tem Jeff Piper acknowledged the rifts in the community but said: “It’s been like this for decades.” He was skeptical of the utility companies’ explanations for the cuts in services because neither of them had shared their geological reports; Instead, they relied on analyzed data (geological surveys, light detection and ranging, repair orders for damaged equipment and fire hazards) and “anecdotal observations,” Pieper said.
James Bayliss said the city and most of the community “are not convinced that the land is moving at a rate” that would require shutting off the utility, and they have not yet found any geological data that would indicate otherwise.
On the city’s website, there is a page dedicated to Land Movement Update State There have been no new updates as of October 1, and moving forward, the city will provide new details “only when there is significant information to share.”
Meanwhile, geologists from the city of Rancho Palos Verdes Reported earlier this month In the rolling hills, particularly around Sinchering and Quail Ridge roads, “creep motion” of up to 0.7 inches per week has been recorded, affecting several properties – including Bellis’ home.
The big question — and concern — about this creep in the rolling hills is whether it might be linked to the destructive movement downwards around Palos Verdes Drive South, where an average of about 8 inches of land slipped per week last month. according to geologist,
For the first time in months, movement slowed down in that areaHowever the worst spots were still losing 11 inches per week in August. There are at least two houses deemed unsafe to re-enterDozens of other people have seen significant damageNear the Wayfarers Chapel has been separated for safekeeping And many roads have become irreparable.
“Based on a review of GPS monitoring data shared by Rolling Hills and recent field mapping, the upper limit of new movement in the Rolling Hills appears to cross the upper Altamira Valley,” the geologists wrote in their report. Altamira Canyon refers to the deep and large underground landslide plane according to officials. recently discovered The most dramatic movement was taking place in parts of Rancho Palos Verdes – and possibly in other areas nearby, which were not under careful surveillance.
James Bayliss shows the damage done to a small wall on the Rolling Hills property owned by his mother.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
Mike Phipps, Rancho Palos Verdes’ contract geologist, said at a city council meeting this month that he’s not sure the Rolling Hills movement is directly related to the rest of the movement in the larger Altamira Canyon landslide, but that Till now is not clear.
“Those landslides can vary,” Phipps said. He said they need more data from land monitoring to understand how different regions may interact.
before this Rolling hills help track land movement and disseminated that geological information to residents, particularly in the 1980s, when ground movement in the Flying Triangle landslide area was detected by Los Angeles County geologists. At the time, there was some disagreement among residents over whether the city should assist in dealing with the movement that had destroyed many homes.
This time, the town’s community association hired a geologist shortly before residents began losing utilities. However, by the September Council meeting, geologists had only 12 days of monitoring data.
City officials told The Times that they know of three homeowners who hired their own geologists after noticing ground movement on their properties.
City staff said, “All residents are encouraged to monitor their properties for signs of ground movement and report any cracks to the association and the city.”
Once Bellis discovered that the crack on her property was part of a larger crack in the road, she and her mother reported it to the city and the association.
The response from the association, he said, was: “Oh, we’ve got it, we’re working on it, don’t worry.”
But he is very worried.
Bellis and her mother have discussed what to do if the cracks get worse and additional homes are at risk of losing gas and electric service. They’ve talked about installing solar panels, which would require replacing the roof, or replacing the home’s two old gas furnaces with electric heat pumps, Bellis said. Either option would be expensive.
James Bayliss looks at the Portuguese Bend landslide area from his Rolling Hills home.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
Bellis’s grandparents purchased land and built their home in the early 1950s. Ann Bellis said she grew up there, was married on the same property and has hosted several other family weddings there.
His family remembers the unimaginable devastation that the neighbors faced when the Flying Triangle landslide activated in 1979. At the time, geologists said the land was shifting in two dramatically different directions, ultimately destroying at least a dozen homes. Records show that the region again saw movement problems early 1990s,
Like other precarious hills in the Palos Verdes Peninsula, the Flying Triangle Slide became an issue when thin layers of bentonite clay sitting beneath tons of soil and rock became wet, slippery, Geologists of that time toldIn previous years Rolling Hills residents had said that the pace would slow down when the weather was dry but would pick up after it rained – a phenomenon that was observed in many Rancho Palos Verdes residents are living There has been unprecedented disturbance due to excessive rainfall in the last few years.
Bellis’ property and the other properties affected by the recent utility shutoffs are not in the Flying Triangle area, but Bellis said he still finds the area’s landslide history worrisome.
“For the future,” Bayliss said, “my big concern is how to keep the water from further damaging and destroying this crack.”
