Letters to the Editor: I live in the Palos Verdes landslide. Here’s what ‘you can’t fight nature’ gets wrong

To the editor: I live in the Portuguese Bend landslide area of Rancho Palos Verdes and have for a long time. I want to object to all the popular “cannot fight Mother Nature� takes on our situation.

Humans have indeed beat down Mother Nature. We have spread radiation across the globe. We have polluted the atmosphere. We even built a dam so massive that it slightly modified the planet’s rotation. And yes, we have adapted to landslides.

Our home is fine now. It was fine in 1970, and it will be fine because it was designed for this landslide. It has an adaptive foundation. Remember, a boat is safe and not on firm ground, and an airplane that weighs more than my home can be moved on three wheels safely with passengers on board.

Homes here can and have been reclaimed after being red-tagged. We’ve defied Mother Nature before, but we hardly get media coverage for that.

If you have the grit, this is an excellent, manageable place to live with other can-do people. We have proved this for 60-plus years.

Madeleine A, McJones, Rancho Palos Verdes

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To the editor: Sadly, any California geology student remembers the textbook chapter about the Portuguese Bend landslide in Palos Verdes.

Sedimentary layers of swelling clays beneath the area slope downward toward the sea. When wetter-than-normal winter rains soak into those layers, they become “slick as snot,� and the overlying strata simply slide toward the Pacific Ocean under their own weight.

Every affected homeowner likely knew the hazards when they bought their homes. Now, cut off from utilities while nature destroys their neighborhood, they call upon government for impossible assistance. Their plight is not unlike that of residents who move to known fire-prone areas, only to be burned out.

Whether subject to wildfire, flood or landslide risk, some homes should have never been built and should not be rebuilt.

David W. Kay, Playa Vista