Hurricane Marie's punishing surf carved a 30-by-30-foot sinkhole into the driveway of Nicolas Cage's beachfront Malibu mansion, triggering a gas leak and a local emergency declaration as erosion threatened homes up and down the Southern California coast.
The driveway of the Hollywood actor's Sea Level Drive property collapsed Tuesday morning, exposing waves and structural beams beneath the gaping hole. A gas leak broke out just before 6 a.m., and AP News reported that utility SoCalGas temporarily shut off natural gas service for an 85-foot section of the street as a precaution. The company said the leak was under control several hours later.
The City of Malibu red-tagged five oceanfront homes on the private street, which sits between the Pacific Ocean and Pacific Coast Highway, and prohibited entry while crews assessed the damage. By Tuesday evening, the city had declared a local state of emergency over the expanding sinkhole and the broader coastal erosion battering its shoreline.
Crews did not wait for the paperwork to dry. The New York Post reported that the homeowners' association pulled permits with the city and started repairs within hours of the sinkhole being reported. At least 15 concrete trucks were deployed to fill the roughly 30-by-30-foot crater before the evening high tide could widen the damage further.
Matt Myerhoff, public information officer for the City of Malibu, confirmed the speed of the response:
"The HOA pulled permits with the City, and started repairs within hours of the sinkhole being reported."
The city also issued an evacuation order for all affected properties. Sheriff's deputies notified residents in person, and a digital alert went out to the surrounding area. Cage's mansion, valued at $10.5 million, was unoccupied at the time of the collapse, and no injuries were reported.
The sinkhole was the most dramatic single incident, but the destruction stretched far beyond one celebrity's driveway. Hurricane Marie stayed well offshore during Labor Day weekend, yet its massive swell created waves reaching around 10 feet in some areas and drove dangerous surf and rip currents along the entire Southern California coastline. Coastal Flood Advisories had been in effect since the holiday weekend and continued into Tuesday.
In Long Beach, approximately 20 oceanfront homes in the Seaside Walk neighborhood were evacuated after waves compromised a seawall. The Long Beach Fire Department issued the orders out of "an abundance of caution" while city building inspectors evaluated whether the threatened structures were safe to occupy. Sand driven inland by the surf clogged storm drains, flooding streets. The boardwalk was closed, and cracked concrete appeared between at-risk homes.
Farther south in Laguna Beach, part of the parking lot at Aliso Beach was shut down after waves and erosion undermined its edges. Much of the beach in front had already been consumed. At a separate oceanfront home in Laguna Beach, a seawall collapsed after what FOX Weather described as weeks of relentless surf and high tides, damage that predated Marie's worst impacts and only worsened once the hurricane's swell arrived.
Authorities cautioned that conditions were likely to worsen with forecasted high tides and rain caused by Marie. The storm's lingering effects posed a continued threat even as it traveled well beyond the West Coast.
Malibu's emergency declaration reflected more than one sinkhole. Fox News reported that the city was actively monitoring broader coastal erosion threats amid forecast strong El Niño conditions expected to compound the damage. A statement from the City of Malibu spelled out the stakes plainly:
"The City is preparing for potential strong storms, strong waves, heavy rain, mudslides, and coastal erosion that are possible along the entire Southern California coast due to the forecast strong El Niño conditions."
That warning extends well beyond the five red-tagged mansions on Sea Level Drive. Southern California's coastline is built on a narrow margin between ocean and infrastructure, and when storms like Marie test that margin, the bill comes due fast, in sinkholes, gas leaks, evacuations, and emergency declarations.
Nicolas Cage's $10.5 million mansion made the headlines, but the real story is the 20-plus families in Long Beach ordered out of their homes, the clogged storm drains flooding neighborhood streets, and the seawalls crumbling under surf that forecasters say will only intensify. Coastal Flood Advisories stretched along much of California's coastline, not just the celebrity enclaves, and the damage from Malibu to Laguna Beach showed how quickly natural forces can overwhelm infrastructure that looked solid the day before.
The sinkhole at Cage's property was unoccupied. The families on Seaside Walk in Long Beach were not so lucky, they had to leave. And the city inspectors evaluating whether those homes are safe to return to have not yet given the all-clear.
Breitbart noted that the collapse was tied to the lingering effects of Tropical Storm Marie, which had churned up dangerous waves along the Southern California coastline over the holiday weekend. The storm may have passed, but the erosion it set in motion has not stopped, and officials have made clear that forecasted high tides and rain could push the damage further.
When the Pacific eats 30 feet of driveway in a single morning, it does not much matter whether the house belongs to a movie star or a retired teacher. What matters is whether anyone in charge had a plan, and whether the infrastructure was built to hold.
