Letters to the Editor: There is no fighting Mother Nature. Palos Verdes landslide shows that

To the editor: I am sad to read of the landslide in Rancho Palos Verdes, but apparently the people living there want the government to fight Mother Nature. (“Palos Verdes landslide keeps getting worse. Residents’ anger boils,” Sept. 22)

On Jan. 10, 2005, a landslide struck the coastal community of La Conchita in Ventura County, destroying or seriously damaging 36 houses and killing 10 people. This was not the first destructive landslide to damage this community, nor is it likely to be the last, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Landslides in the cliffs and hills near beaches are common. Amtrak has had to stop service through Sam Clemente because of landslides near its tracks in that area.

Anger will not solve this problem. If there was a solution to the landslide in Rancho Palos Verdes, the government would have already taken that action.

Don Evans, Canoga Park

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To the editor: I grew up in Long Beach. I remember articles in the Long Beach Press-Telegram newspaper from the 1950s mentioning the landslide in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes, part of a well-known area of prehistoric landslides.

The landslide there was reactivated in 1969, and there has been continuous earth movement ever since. One of the most recent spectacular failures occurred at the former Ocean Trails Golf Club in 1999, leading to its bankruptcy.

In the 1950s and ’60s, it seems that the earth and houses would slide and eventually be bulldozed, and after a requisite time new homes would be built in the same areas of Portuguese Bend. I wondered then as now why building permits would ever be granted in such a known unstable area.

Mother Nature always has the last word.

Richard Wulfsberg, Studio City