A 30-by-30-foot sinkhole swallowed the driveway of Nicolas Cage's Malibu beachfront property on Tuesday, triggering a gas leak and forcing the city to declare a local state of emergency as coastal erosion battered Southern California.
The collapse struck just before 6 a.m. on the 31600 block of Sea Level Drive in western Malibu, where powerful surf driven by Hurricane Marie's remnants had been hammering oceanfront homes since Labor Day weekend. Waves and structural beams were visible beneath the gaping hole where the driveway had been. No one was inside the mansion at the time, Cage's property was unoccupied, but the damage set off a scramble that spread well beyond one celebrity's real estate.
The City of Malibu red-tagged five beachfront homes on the block, prohibiting entry while crews assessed structural damage. The Los Angeles County Fire Department attributed the collapse to coastal erosion caused by Hurricane Marie churning in the Pacific. And authorities warned the worst may not be over: forecasted high tides and rain from Marie threatened to accelerate the damage already done.
The emergency response moved fast. The New York Post reported that at least 15 concrete trucks were deployed to fill the roughly 30-by-30-foot sinkhole and shore up a failed seawall near Cage's property before evening high tides could worsen the breach. The homeowners' association pulled permits with the city and started repairs within hours of the sinkhole being reported, City of Malibu Public Information Officer Matt Myerhoff told the Post.
SoCalGas crews arrived after being notified around 5:45 a.m. of damage to a half-inch natural gas line caused by the sinkhole. AP News reported the utility said the leak was under control several hours later but temporarily shut off natural gas services for an 85-foot section of the street as a precaution against further erosion.
The city issued an evacuation order for all affected properties. Sheriff's deputies notified residents in person, and a digital alert followed.
Cage, the Oscar-winning actor known for films such as Leaving Las Vegas and the National Treasure franchise, purchased the Sea Level Drive mansion for $10.5 million, Fox News reported. The property sits on a stretch of coastline that has taken a sustained beating from elevated tides and rough surf for weeks, well before Marie's swell arrived.
Malibu was not the only Southern California community forced to act. In Long Beach, the fire department ordered evacuations for approximately 20 oceanfront homes along Seaside Walk after Hurricane Marie's swell compromised a seawall protecting the properties. FOX Weather reported the department cited "an abundance of caution" while city building inspectors evaluated whether the threatened homes were structurally safe to occupy.
Aerial photographs from September 7 showed Pacific Ocean waves crashing over the seawall and onto the boardwalk. By September 8, residents on the Alamitos Peninsula were working to reinforce their oceanfront homes with whatever materials they could muster. A lifeguard kept watch along a closed boardwalk as waves reaching around 10 feet pounded the coast.
Farther south in Laguna Beach, a seawall at an oceanfront home had already collapsed after weeks of relentless surf and high tides, before Marie's worst impacts even arrived. At Aliso Beach, much of the sand had been consumed by erosion, and authorities partially closed the parking lot after waves undermined its edges.
Coastal Flood Advisories stretched along much of California's coastline beginning over Labor Day weekend and continued into Tuesday. Storm drains clogged. Concrete cracked. Streets flooded. The damage was not concentrated in one spot, it ran up and down the Southern California coast, hitting infrastructure that was never built to absorb this kind of sustained punishment.
The City of Malibu signaled that the sinkhole on Sea Level Drive may be just the opening chapter. In a statement cited by Fox News, the city said it was 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 language matters. It means officials are not treating this as a freak one-day event. They are bracing for a season of escalating risk along a coastline where multimillion-dollar homes sit feet from the surf, and where the infrastructure protecting them is already failing.
Breitbart noted the city prohibited entry to all five homes on the block due to damage from coastal flooding linked to Tropical Storm Marie, underscoring that the emergency extended beyond Cage's property to an entire neighborhood of beachfront residences.
Several key details remained unclear as of Tuesday. Officials had not publicly identified which five homes were red-tagged beyond their location on the 31600 block. The precise track and current status of Hurricane Marie, and whether it made landfall or remained offshore, were not specified in initial reporting. And it was not clear whether the Long Beach evacuation orders had been lifted or remained in effect as inspectors continued their assessments.
What is clear is the scale. A 30-by-30-foot sinkhole does not form overnight from a passing wave. Weeks of elevated surf had already weakened seawalls and eroded foundations before the holiday weekend delivered the heaviest swells. The collapse at Cage's property was the most dramatic single image of the damage, but the five red-tagged homes, the 20 evacuated residences in Long Beach, and the crumbling infrastructure in Laguna Beach tell a broader story about coastal communities built on borrowed time.
Nature does not care about property values or celebrity owners. But taxpayers should care about who picks up the tab when the ocean reclaims what was always its own.
