Malibu Sinkhole Forces Evacuation of 31 Beachfront Homes, Including Nicolas Cage's Property

Since a gas line ruptured under a collapsing driveway on Sea Level Drive at 5:45 a.m. Tuesday, the situation in Malibu's Point Lechuza community has escalated from a single sinkhole to a full evacuation order covering 31 homes and a declared local emergency.

What

happened on Sea Level Drive Los Angeles County Fire and Sheriff's crews responded to the 31600 block of Sea Level Drive near Broad Beach Tuesday morning after reports of a suspected gas main break, according to the city of Malibu and CBS News. They found a collapsed driveway and a ruptured half-inch natural gas line. Southern California Gas Company crews shut off gas service to the area. The hole itself is big. The Los Angeles Times, citing KTLA, put it at 30 by 30 feet. SM Mirror reported it measures roughly 25 to 30 feet deep and spans 30 by 60 feet. Either way, it's a chasm, not a pothole. One of the homes sitting above it belongs to actor Nicolas Cage, according to real estate records cited by the LA Times. A representative for Cage could not be reached for comment. No injuries were reported.

From five red tags to 31 evacuated

The count of affected properties grew fast over the course of Tuesday. By Tuesday morning, city officials had red-tagged five homes, according to CBS News and the LA Times, prohibiting entry due to hazardous conditions. By Tuesday evening, that number had grown. Malibu's Acting Director of Emergency Services declared a local state of emergency, and the city's formal proclamation, reported by Deadline and Yahoo News, said seven residences had been red-tagged for hazardous conditions, with an additional 24 red-tagged solely because the collapsed roadway cut off safe vehicular access. That brought the total to 31 properties, all now under mandatory evacuation. The city said the surviving stretch of pavement is too narrow for fire engines or other heavy emergency apparatus, according to SM Mirror, which called the block "virtually impassable for rescue operations." Sheriff's deputies went door to door to notify residents, backed by alerts sent through the city's Everbridge emergency network. The American Red Cross opened a temporary shelter at Malibu High School, at 30215 Morning View Drive.

The cause

erosion, high surf, and a passing hurricane's remnants Malibu officials were blunt about the cause. The driveways "collapsed due to coastal erosion from the high tides and high surf," the city said in a statement reported by CBS News. The National Weather Service had high surf and coastal flood advisories in effect for the Malibu coast, L.A. County beaches, Catalina, Santa Barbara Island and Ventura County beaches until 11 p.m. Tuesday, forecasting breaking waves of 4 to 7 feet with local sets up to 8 feet. Rain and swell from the remnants of Hurricane Marie made conditions worse, according to Deadline and Yahoo News. The city's proclamation warned that a Coastal Flood Advisory ran until 11 p.m. Tuesday and that conditions were likely to deteriorate further with additional high tides and rain. Malibu wasn't alone. Deadline and Yahoo reported that Pacific Palisades saw further erosion around the pilings of homes destroyed in last year's wildfire, Long Beach evacuated residents after rare wave action inside its breakwater combined with high tides, and Dana Point red-tagged a number of seaside estates.

A separate storm, a shared pattern

None of this is connected to Hurricane Lowell, the storm that struck Hawaii and killed at least one person, a homeless man on Oahu whose tent was crushed by a falling tree, according to Gov. Josh Green, as reported by CNN. Lowell knocked out power to roughly 90% of Kauai County and prompted the deployment of more than 300 National Guard members. What the two do share is a broader pattern: an active Pacific storm season that CNN's sources attribute partly to El Niño. On the California side, the NOAA Climate Prediction Center forecasts a greater than 90% chance of a very strong "Super" El Niño this winter, according to Deadline, SM Mirror and Yahoo News, all citing the same NOAA outlook. That pattern brings elevated risk of record sea levels, severe coastal flooding and dramatic beach narrowing along the Southern California coast this fall and winter.

Who pays to fix it What remains unresolved is who pays to fix

Sea Level Drive, or whether it gets rebuilt at all. Malibu's proclamation invokes emergency powers under a plan the city council approved back in October 2024, but the statement stops short of committing to any repair timeline or cost estimate. For the 31 families now bunking at Malibu High School or scrambling for hotel rooms, the unresolved question is clear. Coastal armoring, driveway reconstruction and utility repairs on a private road built on an eroding bluff aren't cheap, and it's not clear yet whether the city, the county, private insurers, or the homeowners themselves will be the ones writing the checks. Given NOAA's Super El Niño forecast, this almost certainly won't be the last stretch of Malibu coastline to get red-tagged this winter.