Yusra Farzan
has been covering the landslide in Rancho Palos Verdes since 2023.
Published February 26, 2025 8:12 AM
Historic landslides in Rancho Palos Verdes cause irreversible damage to homes and roads as seen on May 17, 2024.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Topline:
It’s a slow moving disaster that experts have warned against throughout the years, and yet, at every turn, developers were allowed to build, build, build, driven by buyer demand and lucrative prices in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes. The city is using more than $40 million in federal emergency disaster funds for a buyback program since most insurance doesn’t cover landslides. But the chance of property owners recouping their market values is slim as some parcels languish on real estate listings.
How we got here: According to research from the Cal State Dominguez Hills, the Portuguese Bend landslide has been moving for more than 250,000 years. But the more aggressive movement started after World War II, when the peninsula experienced a housing boom and L.A. County expanded Crenshaw Boulevard.
Land acceleration: In a report to city officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, geologists said a particularly wet winter in 1978 accelerated land movement, at one point up to 40 feet a year in the early 1980s.
Legal history: When the landslide started accelerating in 1978, city officials banned new construction in the Portuguese Bend landslide area, saying they had to “conduct extensive geological studies to determine the stability of the land.” For years, the development moratorium held, until 15 property owners sued the city in 2002 and were later allowed to build.
Where things stand today: Today, unstable land movement has left hundreds without power or gas and dozens of homes are unliveable, according to officials.
Read on ... to learn more about the history of development on the Peninsula.
Rancho Palos Verdes life is mostly idyllic and insular. Clifftop ocean views, scenic hiking trails and a thriving equine community mean residents rarely have to go “down the hill.”
But in recent years, multi-million-dollar homes perched atop oceanside bluffs in the Portuguese Bend area have started to succumb to geological forces that — despite millions of dollars and years of efforts — cannot be stopped.
In fact, those forces were accelerated by heavy rains in 2023 and 2024, pulling apart structures, cutting gas and power lines and severing roads. NASA imagery shows that land was sliding at a rate of 4 inches a week during a four-week period last year.
Portuguese Bend is clearly on borrowed time.
Land movement made a section of Narcissa Drive impassable in September.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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An aerial view of landslide damage at the corner of Dauntless Drive and Exultant Drive in the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes in September.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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But people are adaptable, especially when there’s this much to lose. Residents have set up solar panels and generators. The iconic Wayfarers Chapel was meticulously disassembled so it can be moved to more stable ground. The city has increased efforts to pump groundwater away from the slide zone and will use more than $40 million in federal disaster funds to buy properties.
So how did this slow-moving disaster get to this point? Who’s responsible? And where does Rancho Palos Verdes go from here?
Workers dismantle the historic Wayfares Chapel in May after landslides shifted the terrain.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Wayfarers Chapel was closed to the public after land movement, clearly visible on the road below the church, that followed heavy rains.
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Patrick T. Fallon
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AFP via Getty Images
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What set off the movement
According to research from Cal State Dominguez Hills, the Portuguese Bend landslide has been moving for more than 250,000 years. But the more aggressive movement started after World War II, when the peninsula experienced a housing boom.
“Sliding increased as ground water levels rose, the latter due to homeowner irrigation, and installation of pools and septic tanks,” Brendan McNulty, the professor behind the research paper, wrote. “Almost all of these houses have since been destroyed by landslide activity.”
McNulty has since retired and is not available for interviews, a spokesperson for the university told LAist.
The Portuguese Bend area seen from the air in 1955 before many houses were built.
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Howard D. Kelly
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Kelly-Holiday Mid-Century Aerial Collection / Los Angeles Public Library
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Frank Vanderlip, a banker based in New York, purchased the peninsula in 1913 with a vision of turning it into an artists colony, said Palos Verdes Historical Society President Dana Graham. But the Great Depression derailed those plans. Japanese American farmers were forcibly moved off the peninsula when President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 incarcerated thousands of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans. When service members began returning from World War II, the peninsula became an attractive option since Vanderlip envisioned more than 50% of the area as parkland.
At the time, Graham said, the roads were mostly dirt and to build a home on the peninsula, you had to pave your own.
But in 1956, Graham said, the fragile geology keeping the bluffs relatively intact took a hit when L.A. County expanded Crenshaw Boulevard.
“ The theory was that the blasting and the digging and the movement of dirt and all that had disturbed an ancient slide that had been at equilibrium,” Graham said.
According to historical documents posted by the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, land moved roughly 22 feet from September 1956 to April 1957.
What happened next
In a report to city officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, geologists said a particularly wet winter in 1978 accelerated land movement, at one point up to 40 feet a year in the early 1980s. The city was later able to reduce that movement to 1 foot a year by installing dewatering wells, which pump water out of the ground, but the bluffs never recovered.
Drainage systems in Rancho Palos Verdes were installed in the 1980s as part of a stabilization plan.
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City of Rancho Palos Verdes
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In the geologists’ report, they said that since the landslide was reactivated in the 1950s more than 5.8 million cubic yards of sediment — or enough to fill over 200,000 football fields — had been deposited in the ocean since the land started moving in the 1950s.
Residents sue the city to develop land
When the land movement started accelerating in 1978, city officials banned new construction in the Portuguese Bend area, saying they had to “conduct extensive geological studies to determine the stability of the land.” For years, the development moratorium held, until 15 property owners sued the city in 2002, arguing that development had become too restrictive over the years.
The city’s position, city manager Ara Mihranian told LAist, was to allow improvements on homes built prior to the city’s incorporation.
Sliding land damaged homes in Rancho Palos Verdes, like this one seen in 1984, before the stabilization plan went into effect.
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City of Rancho Palos Verdes
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A trial followed, and the judge ruled in favor of the city, claiming the development moratorium was justified. But the property owners won on appeal, with the ruling stating that the moratorium was an “unconstitutional taking of property” and the city had to either allow the plaintiffs to build on their vacant lots or buy them at fair market value. This paved the way for the development now being slowly crippled and rendered uninhabitable for the landslide movement
Mihranian said three of the homes built as a result of the court ruling are now red tagged.
Where things stand today
Today, unstable land movement has left hundreds of residents without power or gas after above average rainfall over the last two winters accelerated movement in the landslide complex rendered dozens of homes unliveable, according to officials. At one point last year, land was moving up to 1 foot a week in some areas. That has since slowed with around-the-clock dewatering wells, but experts say it can’t be totally stopped.
NASA’s UAVSAR airborne radar instrument captured data in fall 2024 showing the motion of landslides on the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Darker red indicates faster motion.
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NASA Earth Observatory
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Which leads to the current conundrum.
Mihranian told LAist that the long term plan is for the city to look at opportunities through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant program to buy back homes in the landslide complex.
Land movement caused a water main to break in the Portuguese Bend area last year.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Portuguese Bend resident Gordon Leon shows where he has installed a generator at his home due to electrical service being cut off.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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As property owners wait for funding for the buyouts, others are trying the real estate market. On Zillow, a home on Vanderlip Drive is listed for more than $2 million with a note that states: “The home is offered for a fraction of its pre-movement value...and will offer a buyer a unique blend of elegance, comfort and breathtaking beauty, making it a true treasure to be loved by the next family lucky enough to call it home.”
According to the listing, the homeowners have “fought back” against the land movement by installing helical piers, or foundations screwed into the ground.
The listing agent, Charlie Raine, told LAist there's been interest in the place for its character and history. But in general, he said news of the landslides hasn't helped in generating prospects.
" We've had people who have mentioned the fact that, you know, how close is it to the landslide? And these are houses that are nowhere near the landslides," he said. "It's something that's on buyers' minds, and it certainly must have a negative effect on some people that maybe won't look in the area."
Landslide damage at the corner of Dauntless Drive and Exultant Drive in the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes in September.
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Brian Feinzimer
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LAist
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Another listing for a million-dollar home in the Seaview area states: “Don’t miss this opportunity to own a slice of coastal paradise in one of Southern California’s most desirable neighborhoods. Schedule your private showing today and experience the allure of seaside living at its finest. Property located in the neighborhood impacted by LAND MOVEMENT and affected by it.”
Mihranian said the city can’t step in to halt those sales since they are privately owned parcels.
Other property owners have filed lawsuits against the city. Two filed last year allege the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, L.A. County, CalWater and the Klondike Canyon Landslide Abatement District failed to properly manage the landslide or take adequate precautionary measures ahead of wet winter seasons. The lawsuits also allege that improperly maintained water and sewer lines contributed to the recent acceleration in movement.
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published October 3, 2026 5:00 AM
George Van Tassel with an architectural model of Integratron he said was inspired by guidance from beings from Venus, now housed at the Huntington.
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McKinney Collection of George W. Van Tassel Papers
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The Huntington
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Topline:
The Huntington has acquired its first ufology collection, tracing the Integratron's origins and the desert flying saucer movement that its creator, George Van Tassel helped lead.
Backstory: A pool contractor, a historian and a podcaster joined forces to help the archive find a home at the Huntington.
Long before it drew sound bath seekers from around the world, the Mojave Desert’s Integratron was one man’s bid to extend human life, guided, he said, by beings from Venus.
A collection tracing the history of the white-domed landmark built by George Van Tassel and the postwar UFO movement he helped lead has now found a home at the Huntington.
The Mojave Desert became a major hub for UFO contactees after WWII.
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McKinney Collection of George W. Van Tassel Papers
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The Huntington
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How a ufology archive reached an institution best known for its manicured botanical gardens and classical portraits is a story decades in the making, bringing together a pool deck contractor, a historian and a podcaster.
“This isn’t just a UFO collection,” said Jack Wager, the L.A.-based host of Otherworld, a popular podcast examining the paranormal. “This is connected to the history of the desert, aerospace, and Southern California in general.”
Who was George Van Tassel?
In the 1950s, the Mojave was becoming an important gathering spot for those who claimed contact with extraterrestrials.
Get a first glimpse at the Integratron archive at the Huntington's Strange Science event
When: Oct. 30–31, 2026, 6–10 p.m. Where: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino Cost: $90 More infohere
Van Tassel had left a career as a flight inspector in Southern California's burgeoning aeronautics industry for the desert community of Landers where his family operated the Come On Inn cafe by an airstrip, and he organized UFO conventions.
George Van Tassel and his wife Eva ran the Come On Inn cafe in the Mojave Desert.
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McKinney Collection of George W. Van Tassel Papers
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The Huntington
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In a 1964 TV interview, he described a close encounter of his own with a crew of humanoids from Venus.
“They were about five foot six,” Van Tassel said. “They came about to my eyebrows, and they could have walked in our clothes down any of our streets, and we would not have paid any attention to it.”
Van Tassel said one of the beings, named Solganda, gave him the idea to bathe people in electromagnetic energy to recharge their cells and live longer.
He began building the Integratron a few miles from his home in the late 1950s, funded by proceeds from his publications and conventions, along with donations. It was rumored that Howard Hughes, for whom he worked as a flight inspector, had contributed $40,000 — worth about half a million today.
The building took its unique shape over the desert but was not fully done by the time Van Tassel died of a heart attack in 1978, said La Crescenta-based architectural historian Daniel Paul.
“Sometimes I wondered if he was starting to try certain things on himself, and maybe that messed up his heart a little bit,” Paul said.
Paul dug into Van Tassel’s life after the Integratron’s current owners — sisters Joanne, Nancy and Patty Karl, who transformed the dome into a destination for sound baths — hired him to secure a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Integratron is known for today as a destination for sound baths after it was purchased in 2000 by its current owners including Joanne Karl, seen here.
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Robert Gauthier
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Los Angeles Times
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In his application to the National Park Service, Paul said he credited the Integratron design to the architect Howard P. Hesse, Van Tassel and, in parentheses, Solganda, “because that's what George Van Tassel always said where this guidance came from.”
The Park Service officially listed the Integratron in 2018. Afterward, Paul got a voicemail from a stranger complimenting him for citing Solganda.
A watercolor illustration of the Integratron
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McKinney Collection of George W. Van Tassel Papers
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The Huntington
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How a pool deck contractor ended up with the Van Tassel archive
The caller was Don McKinney, a contractor from Morongo Valley who resurfaced pool decks and, as a side quest, had amassed a vast collection of Van Tassel memorabilia.
Donald McKinney collected the items of Integratron creator George Van Tassel for decades.
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Otherworld Instagram
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“I thought that Van Tassel was the most colorful person and interesting person of all,” McKinney said.
McKinney said he met Van Tassel in 1969 when he was 19 and, with friends, visited the older man’s home by a massive boulder called Giant Rock. They went to an underground room where Van Tassel said he received communications from outer space.
“I pulled a book off the shelf and saw a flying saucer in it and asked him, 'George, these were real?'” McKinney recalled. “I pointed to the flying saucer, and he says, ‘Absolutely.’”
McKinney hasn’t seen a UFO in the years since, but believes those who say they have.
In the early 2000s, a potential pool job brought him back into Van Tassel’s world.
Giant Rock, the boulder by where George Van Tassel worked and lived.
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Jack Wagner
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A Van Tassel associate named George Riddle was seeking construction quotes and, in the course of talking, revealed he had a trove of Van Tassel belongings, everything from a model of the Integratron to a photo McKinney remembered seeing at the Come On Inn cafe.
“I just fainted practically,” McKinney said. “I bought as much stuff as I could possibly buy from him."
Archival materials from the post-war ufology movement in the Southern California desert are now part of the Huntington collection.
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McKinney Collection of George W. Van Tassel Papers
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The Huntington
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By the time McKinney called Paul, he had spent a dozen or so years storing the items in the high-desert home he shares with his wife, Dayle. He later invited Paul to come see it all.
“I drove down there and met him, and I thought, oh my gosh,” Paul said. “I knew right away Don was the real deal.”
A podcast taping and a race to save the tapes
Several years later, Paul brought the story to a new audience.
On a May 2025 episode of the podcast Otherworld, he joined Wagner to talk about the Integratron. When Paul mentioned McKinney’s desert archive, Wagner wanted to know more.
After the taping, he called McKinney and found out that he had 120 reel-to-reel tapes of Van Tassel's channelings. Wagner was instantly worried about their survival.
“They don't have a huge lifespan, and the Eaton fires had just happened,” Wagner said. “I remember thinking, ‘Man, like, there should at least be a digital copy of these tapes.’”
Wagner headed to McKinney’s house to preserve the audio and flew in his producers Theo Schafer from New York and Theo Krantz from New Mexico.
Otherworld producers Theo Krantz and Theo Schafer joined host Jack Wagner at the home of Don McKinney to preserve his reel-to-reel tapes and other recordings owned by George Van Tassel.
The trio discovered much more than tapes. They also found Integratron blueprints and materials from Van Tassel’s career in aeronautics. They document their trip in a video posted on Otherworld's Patreon.
What happens to the collection now
Wagner told Paul the collection belonged in a museum. Paul agreed and reached out to a friend at the Huntington, Anne Blecksmith, who was associate director of the library, who then told her colleagues.
A pair of Huntington curators went out to the desert to see the collection themselves. An appraisal followed, then a purchase for an undisclosed amount.
Aside from audio recordings, the Otherworld team were floored by the amount of other items chronicling the desert's UFO history.
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Jack Wagner
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For Erin Chase, the Huntington's associate curator of architecture and photography, said the collection has strong cross-appeal.
“Maybe it's about cultural history. Maybe it's about the desert. Maybe it's about alternative spirituality,” Chase said. “The hope is that someone will find something in there that's meaningful to them.”
Huntington's associate curator of architecure and photography Erin Chase (r.) examines the Integratron model with library director Sandra Brooke Gordon.
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Linnea Stephan
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The Huntington
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Today, the newly named McKinney Collection of George W. Van Tassel Papers is housed in climate-controlled rooms under tight security as staff prepares it for public access.
Selections, including the Integratron model, will be spotlighted at the Huntington’s Strange Science event on Oct. 30 and Oct. 31. Paul and Wagner will share the stage on both nights to talk about Van Tassel.
In May, Donald McKinney (bottom right) visited the archive he'd kept in his desert home for more than two decades with historian Daniel Paul (bottom right), Otherworld podcaster Jack Wagner and his wife Dayle.
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Donald McKinney
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The Integratron’s current operators welcomed the archive’s arrival at the Huntington. They’ve worked to share the landmark’s history with visitors, but “we cannot be the museum,” said Kristine Atkinson, who helps run the Integratron for her mother, Nancy Karl, and aunts.
“We absolutely know that we couldn't possibly be the end-all, be-all about George Van Tassel,” Atkinson said. “It's too much. It's too big.”
As for McKinney, he got to visit the Huntington for the first time in March with his wife, along with Paul and Wagner, whom he now counts as friends.
The collection’s new home brings relief and joy.
The leather band Don McKinney hand-crafted will stay on the Integratron model at the Huntington. He points to the "F = 1/T," the formula he said was behind the Integratron.
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Jack Wagner
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“We can go to the store and not worry that there's going to be a fire or theft or problems,” McKinney said. “It's just a major blessing all the way around because such good people have control over it.”
His own handiwork is now part of that history. A leather band that McKinney, a skilled leatherworker, crafted still wraps around the base of the Integratron model for visitors to see.
For more than 20 years, California has levied taxes on health insurers to help fund Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people.
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Jose Carlos Cerdeno Martinez
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Doctors and health insurers filed a lawsuit Friday alleging Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature violated the law when they approved a healthcare tax that could substantially increase insurance premiums for Californians.
The lawusit: The California Medical Association and California Association of Health Plans say in a new lawsuit that the tax violates Proposition 35, passed by voters in 2024. It claims the recently passed tax on health plans, known as the managed care organization tax or MCO tax, circumvents the 2024 initiative that limits healthcare taxes and directs revenue toward specific purposes. The California Medical Association and California Association of Health Plans filed the complaint with the California Supreme Court.
The backstory: For more than 20 years, California has levied taxes on health insurers to help fund Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people. The state historically taxed private health plans at a lower rate than Medi-Cal insurers, but in June, the Legislature passed a bill substantially raising the tax on private plans. Health insurers said they will pass the cost directly on to consumers, spiking premiums by about $100 per person each year. That means a family of four could pay a $400 annual increase. That would come on top of the rate increases people typically see year to year.
The lawsuit claims the recently passed tax on health plans, known as the managed care organization tax or MCO tax, circumvents a 2024 initiative that limits healthcare taxes and directs revenue toward specific purposes. The California Medical Association and California Association of Health Plans filed the complaint with the California Supreme Court.
“California voters passed Proposition 35 and made it law. The state does not get to ignore that law simply because following the law is inconvenient,” medical association CEO Dustin Corcoran said in a statement.
Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance, said in a previous statement to CalMatters that the state wanted to balance the affordability concerns of privately insured patients against large-scale federal Medi-Cal cuts.
For more than 20 years, California has levied taxes on health insurers to help fund Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low-income people. The state historically taxed private health plans at a lower rate than Medi-Cal insurers, but in June, the Legislature passed a bill substantially raising the tax on private plans.
Health insurers said they will pass the cost directly on to consumers, spiking premiums by about $100 per person each year. That means a family of four could pay a $400 annual increase. That would come on top of the rate increases people typically see year to year.
“California is breaking the law by blowing through a tax limit voters put in place to protect Californians and businesses from higher health care costs,” said Charles Bacchi, CEO of the health plans association.
Doctors, hospitals, clinics and Medi-Cal insurers have argued for many years that the revenue from the tax should go toward improving Medi-Cal. They said that the state was inappropriately using the money to replace general fund spending, and that many providers were being paid far less than their services cost. In 2024, they asked voters to approve a limited tax that would be reserved for Medi-Cal improvements.
But Congress last year changed the rules on taxes used to generate revenue for healthcare, including the ones imposed on health plans. Rather than lose the money generated by the tax, Newsom proposed and the Legislature agreed to submit two taxes to the federal government for approval: one that complied with the 2024 initiative but would be rejected by the feds, and one that complied with federal regulations and largely disregarded the initiative.
Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.
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By Felicia Mello | Berkelyside via Associated Press
Published October 2, 2026 4:00 PM
A student makes their way to Wheeler Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, on Feb.19, 2026.
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Christina House
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
California could create its own multi-billion-dollar science and health research agency under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday, helping to fill a gap left by the politicization of science under the second Trump administration.
Why it matters: The bill places a $7.5 billion bond measure on the March 2028 ballot to pay for the creation of the California Foundation for Science and Health Research. The new state agency would provide grants and loans for projects in public health, climate science, agriculture and other areas. Panels of scientists would review proposals, and the agency would develop rules allowing the state to share in some of the profits from inventions made with its support.
The backstory: The Trump administration canceled nearly $2 billion in research grants to the University of California beginning in early 2025, later acknowledging in court that officials searched for keywords such as “health equity” and “sexual orientation” in order to decide what to cut. While a court order restored much of the money, the National Science Foundation has since slowed grantmaking nationwide, and President Trump has proposed giving political appointees more power to veto National Institutes of Health grants that don’t align with his agenda.
What's next: Voters will decide in a year and a half whether to fund the idea, which the University of California has championed.
California could create its own multi-billion-dollar science and health research agency under a bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Wednesday, helping to fill a gap left by the politicization of science under the second Trump administration. Voters will decide in a year and a half whether to fund the idea, which the University of California has championed.
Approved by state lawmakers at a time when federal science funding has become increasingly unpredictable, the bill places a $7.5 billion bond measure on the March 2028 ballot to pay for the creation of the California Foundation for Science and Health Research. The new state agency would provide grants and loans for projects in public health, climate science, agriculture and other areas. Panels of scientists would review proposals, and the agency would develop rules allowing the state to share in some of the profits from inventions made with its support.
“Scientific advancements are curing and preventing diseases, improving the lives of people living with chronic conditions, protecting our communities from wildfires, lowering the cost of food, and powering our economy,” the bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, said in a statement. “We cannot allow the federal government to throw away that hope for a better future.”
Newsom joined Wiener to sign the bill Wednesday atop the Golden Gate Bridge, a landmark built with voter-approved bond money in the 1930s that his press office described as a symbol of California ingenuity. He said the proposed science agency “does the opposite of what Donald Trump is doing (and) will allow us to double down on what makes this state great.”
It was a dramatic comeback for a measure that almost died in the Legislature earlier this year, when a more ambitious $23 billion version of the plan failed to make it onto the November ballot despite bipartisan support.
Researchers from UC Berkeley and elsewhere had joined with UC leadership to lobby for the bond, hosting rallies and inviting lawmakers to a science fair highlighting projects that had seen their funding stalled or canceled by the federal government.
This spring, the National Science Foundation canceled an additional $21 million in grants to UC Berkeley, accusing the projects’ lead researchers of accepting foreign funding without disclosing it, a charge some of those scientists denied. UC President James Milliken has called the disruption of federal research funding “one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history.”
Lawmakers nevertheless declined to move the science bond forward this spring amid worries about competing demands on state funds – including a housing bond on the November ballot and the possible need to backfill other federal cuts. But negotiations among bill supporters, legislative leaders and the governor over the summer led to the scaled-down version that Newsom signed Wednesday.
Along with the University of California, California State University, private universities, and independent labs would all be potentially eligible for grants from the new state fund. A $7.5 billion state fund would not by itself make up for the instability in federal grants – the UC alone received nearly $5 billion in federal research funding in fiscal year 2024-25. But supporters say it could be especially helpful to researchers in fields such as climate science that are critical to the state’s future but have run afoul of Trump administration priorities.
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Berkeleyside partners with the nonprofit newsroom Open Campus on higher education coverage.
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This story was originally published by Berkeleyside and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Planada Elementary School, built in 1955 below flood level, damaged by heavy rains and a levee break on Jan. 6, 2023.
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Planada Elementary School District
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Topline:
A winter of potentially devastating weather driven by what scientists predict to be a massive El Niño event could strain many of California’s TK-12 public schools, experts say.
The backstory: The southern and central parts of the state are expected to be hit hard along with coastal areas, as they were in 2023 when mid-March storms forced the closure of at least 178 schools. Only this time, weather scientists predict El Niño could stress levees to the max, and even bring potential for tornadoes, along with torrential rains, mudslides, storm-driven tides and heavy winds.
Why it matters: Many schools have leaky roofs heading into El Niño, bond records show. Older school buildings are expected to be damaged by El Niño-driven storms. Coastal flooding could be severe as one small oceanfront school braces for El Niño.
Why now: One of the things that makes El Niños so dangerous in coastal areas is that they are known in California for also causing rising tides known as Kelvin waves. They are slow-moving and can raise sea levels for weeks. Some could reach shore as early as October. At the same time, an astronomical phenomenon known as super king tides is expected from November to January, Danial Swain, a climate scientist with University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said in an online presentation. “That would probably bring record-breaking coastal flooding this year.”
A winter of potentially devastating weather driven by what scientists predict to be a massive El Niño event could strain many of California’s TK-12 public schools, experts say, likely damaging aging structures and forcing school closures.
The southern and central parts of the state are expected to be hit hard along with coastal areas, as they were in 2023 when mid-March storms forced the closure of at least 178 schools. Only this time, weather scientists predict El Niño could stress levees to the max, and even bring potential for tornadoes, along with torrential rains, mudslides, storm-driven tides and heavy winds.
While district superintendents in especially vulnerable areas are already planning ahead, some schools may be ill-equipped to handle punishing weather. At least 59 California school districts are seeking voter approval for bonds in the November election, and have identified the need to repair or replace “leaky,” “dilapidated” and “decaying” roofs, an EdSource examination of local ballot language shows.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Sept. 21, ordering pumps and sandbags to be stockpiled near vulnerable areas, among other precautions. Federal flood data show roughly 20% of the state’s schools are located within flood plains. In 2023, heavy storms flooded schools in Alameda and Merced counties as well as one near Watsonville, where a levee ruptured.
“Climate-driven El Niño conditions could mean months of dangerous weather, heavy rain, strong winds, deep mountain snow and flooding,” Caroline Thomas Jacobs, director of the California Office of Emergency Services, said at a news conference, adding that the public shouldn’t underestimate “the power of water.”
Preparing for a severe El Niño
As predictions of severe weather spread, there isn’t a school superintendent in an area that the El Niño is predicted to impact “that hasn’t been thinking about this for weeks already,” said Scott Borba, executive director of the California Small School Districts Association. Many small districts have aging buildings — some as many as 75 years old, Borba said.
“You’ve got leaks and dry rot and all the things that a super wet winter is going to just exacerbate,” he said.
While district leaders work with other local agencies during weather emergencies, they are largely on their own when making major decisions, such as whether to cancel school, Borba said.
“Sometimes you have some county office of emergency services’ support. But when it comes to making that decision, that decision lies with the superintendent alone,” he said.
One small school district leader who may soon be making such decisions is Raven Coit, the superintendent and principal of the 61-student TK-8 Peninsula Union School District on the south end of the Northern Humboldt Peninsula in Humboldt County. It’s perhaps the most isolated coastal school in California, roughly 600 yards from the ocean. Dunes often serve as a play area for students.
Coit took steps this year to try to limit storm damage. She had trees cut back and used money saved by deferring other projects to complete much-needed roof repairs. “There was a big storm that caused leaking. I’m proud to say that it won’t rain inside this year,” she said.
But the likelihood of impacts from El Niño remains. The school’s “in a vulnerable spot,” she said. Flooding could cut off access to the only road leading to the school. There’s a backup generator that she’s “trying to figure out if I can make it work.”
While nearly all the school’s students live nearby, many teachers do not, and may not be able to get to work. Local high school students are bussed to Arcata on the mainland — if buses can get through.
She said the school could also turn to remote learning in a crisis.
How El Niño may impact schools in coastal areas
One of the things that makes El Niños so dangerous in coastal areas like Coit’s is that they are known in California for also causing rising tides known as Kelvin waves.
They are slow moving, and can raise sea levels for weeks. Some could reach shore as early as October. At the same time, an astronomical phenomenon known as super king tides is expected from November to January, Danial Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, said in an online presentation.
“That would probably bring record-breaking coastal flooding this year.”
A worst-case scenario “would be an El Niño Kelvin, plus a peak king tide, plus a significant storm,” he said.
A Southern California school leader of one of those districts said it’s bracing for storms.
Don Austin, superintendent of Laguna Beach Unified School District in Orange County, said that living on the coast, “I have seen our beaches get washed away with recent storms and homes destroyed.”
His schools have “roof leaks and other issues that will be heavily impacted by an El Niño,” he said.
The most impactful weather-driven damage to a California school in recent years was in March 2023 when a broken river levee caused the Pajaro Middle school near Watsonville to flood, along with the heavily Mexican immigrant and farmworker community it serves.
The school reopened in 2024. A complete replacement of the entire levee by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could take a decade, officials said.
Mark Strudley, executive director of the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, said the agency is spending roughly $1 million to strengthen the levee, and that the breach that led to the school flooding has been permanently repaired. El Niño, he said, is the obvious concern, and the work is aimed at protecting the town of Pajaro and the middle school.
Leaders of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District remain concerned about El Niño, but haven’t identified a temporary site to move students to if the school floods again, according to Peggy Pughe, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning.
Asked what the district officials are doing based on their experience with the 2023 floods and the threat of El Niño, Pughe said they are “canvassing local neighborhoods, encouraging families and residents to sign up for emergency alert services.”
Data journalist Daniel J. Willis and staff writer Emma Gallegos contributed to this story.
EdSource is an independent nonprofit organization that provides analysis on key education issues facing California and the nation. LAist republishes articles from EdSource with permission.
