Living on the edge in California

Few places are as fun as the headlands at Dana Point, where ocean waves rhythmically lap the shoreline and on a clear day the outline of Santa Catalina Island emerges from the Pacific Ocean, the silhouette of a bold sentinel in the distance.

I walked the headland trail last week not only to enjoy the beauty that has drawn so many of us to California, but also to catch a glimpse of three houses perched on the edge of a cliff off Scenic Drive. A round of storms had sent rocks and dirt pouring down, seemingly weakening the ground beneath those homes.

Increasingly severe winter storms have caused erosion, flooding and mudslides in many parts of the state as soils have become saturated with water. Two weeks ago, heavy rain from an intense atmospheric river sent mud seeping through some hillside neighborhoods in Los Angeles, severely damaging homes and forcing evacuations.

Residents were worried again over the holiday weekend when another atmospheric river blew in from the Pacific Ocean. The storm system brought heavy rain to the southern part of the state on Monday, as well as severe thunderstorms and gusty winds to the Bay Area and warnings from forecasters about flooding, hail and possible tornadoes.

The Dana Point homes in Orange County attracted particular attention after The Los Angeles Times and several TV stations obtained drone footage of their apparently precarious situation. City officials and two Scenic Drive residents told me this week that the townhouses remained structurally sound. “We're doing absolutely fine,” said one resident, Lewis Bruggeman, over the loudspeaker at the gate outside his home.

Yet the literal line between beauty and danger on the coast seemed clear to passersby. “Apparently Mother Nature has kind of taken over,” said Roger Parsons, 73, who was walking with his wife, Laurie.

The Parsons live a few miles away in Rancho Mission Viejo, another hillside community in an unincorporated part of Orange County, with only a sliver of view of the Pacific Ocean from the back of their house. The couple said they were fine there, with less of a view but more confidence in the ground beneath them.

Two extreme winters have put Californians on notice. I spoke Sunday with residents of Baldwin Hills, one of the neighborhoods in Los Angeles that was hardest hit by a storm two weeks ago. Staci Broussard, 58, a retired city worker, said the storm caused more damage to the neighborhood's hills than she had ever seen in the two decades she lived there.

The slope behind her house crumbled, toppling part of her backyard's iron fence and sending mud and vegetation from her neighbor's property down the hill, flooding much of her backyard. Since then, she said, she hasn't been able to sleep well, as you might imagine.

As this week's storm approached, Baldwin Hills residents did what they could to prevent further disaster. They knew that the accumulation of rain this winter made them more vulnerable to any additional heavy downpours.

“Between us and the neighbor, we put up tarps and posts and put up sandbags to hide all of that,” Broussard said of the vulnerable hillside.

The danger doesn't end when the rain stops. Months after last winter's storms, a dozen homes on a hilltop in Rolling Hills Estates began collapsing into a canyon, and engineers confirmed later that the storms were to blame. Earlier this month, Los Angeles building inspectors placed red tags on 15 homes — meaning they were uninhabitable — and restricted access to 47 others due to storm damage.

Patrick Barnard, a research geologist who specializes in coastal hazards and climate impacts for the United States Geological Survey, said several factors have contributed to California's ground instability, including tectonic forces, weak rocks, poor urban drainage and rainfall.

Especially along the coast, storms are potential causes of cliff failure because rainfall can increase pore pressure, lubricate slip surfaces and add extra weight, Barnard said.

“We've built up to the very edge of what is a dynamic landscape,” he said.

And before you go: good news

A new exhibit celebrating the three-decade relationship between San Jose and Pune, India, a sister city, is on display at San Jose City Hall, Mercury News reports this.

The exhibition, which opened with a reception earlier this month, is called 'Pune Through the Lens' and features 50 images of Pune depicting its culture and its people, photographed by Manoj Musale, who is based there. The exhibit also includes a few additional pieces donated to San Jose by its sister city.

San Jose and Pune officially became sister cities in 1992, after a lengthy effort by a small group in San Jose to bring the two major tech-focused cities together. Since then, the partnership has delivered a handful of projects, such as the construction of a park near the Mutha River in Pune. The exhibition was first conceived around the 25th anniversary of the relationship in 2017, but the pandemic postponed its opening.

Thank you for reading. We'll be back tomorrow.

PS Here it is today's mini crossword.

Soumya Karlamangla, Maia Coleman and Briana Scalia contributed to California Today. You can reach the team via CAtoday@nytimes.com.

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