The timing couldn’t be more sobering. As WEHOonline was preparing this follow-up story on the Hollywood Fault and West Hollywood’s earthquake preparedness, twin earthquakes struck Venezuela on Wednesday. A magnitude 7.2 foreshock was followed 39 seconds later by a magnitude 7.5 mainshock near the capital, Caracas. As of Saturday afternoon, at least 1,430 people were confirmed dead, 3,238 injured and nearly 3,142 families displaced from their homes. Obviously, those numbers will shift as the story unfolds.
It was the strongest earthquake to strike Venezuela in more than 125 years. Buildings collapsed across the capital. Residents flooded into the streets, afraid to go back inside.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department responded Thursday saying the Venezuela disaster serves as a powerful reminder that earthquakes can occur without warning and have far-reaching consequences. Sheriff Robert Luna said: “Here in Los Angeles County, we live in a region where a major earthquake is not a matter of if, but when.”
Talk of massive earthquakes has been making the rounds since new research showing the San Andreas Fault system is under its highest tectonic stress in a thousand years was released a couple weeks back. Scientists say the bill is overdue.
Turns out West Hollywood has its own fault to worry about. When WEHOonline published a story last week on the Hollywood Fault, we had some questions only the City could answer. Multiple City divisions responded. Here’s what they said — and why it matters.
If you missed the first story, here’s a quick recap. The Hollywood Fault is a nine-mile active fault running east-west from Atwater Village directly into West Hollywood. It traces along Sunset Boulevard — the Sunset Strip. It’s capable of producing a magnitude 7 earthquake. The last time it ruptured significantly was more than 7,000 years ago. Seismologists are not reassured by that.
The City of West Hollywood hired Degenkolb Engineers in 2015 to survey the entire building stock for seismic vulnerability. Degenkolb identified approximately 780 soft-story wood-frame buildings — those with open ground-floor tuck-under parking, typically built in the 1950s and 1960s — as especially prone to collapse in a major earthquake. They also flagged 55 non-ductile concrete buildings, 31 steel moment-frame buildings built before the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and another 60 buildings at risk for other reasons. The City adopted a mandatory seismic retrofit ordinance in April 2017. About 80 percent of West Hollywood residents are renters. Most live in rent-controlled apartments. The stakes of getting this wrong are enormous.
With that context, here’s what the City had to say.
83% of soft-story buildings have acted toward compliance
Nine years into the mandatory retrofit program, approximately 83 percent of soft-story wood-frame buildings in West Hollywood have taken steps toward compliance. That’s according to a staff presentation delivered to City Council on April 20, 2026.
The City posts an updated survey list of every building in the program with the current status of each one. Find it on the Seismic Retrofit Program page here. The April 20 staff report is also in the public record here.
There’s a catch though. Acted toward compliance doesn’t mean the building has been retrofitted. It could also mean the building has just filed paperwork. If you’re renting and you want to know whether your building has been retrofitted, best to ask your landlord directly.
But 129 buildings have done nothing
That number from the April 20 City Council meeting is the one that should concern West Hollywood renters. 129 buildings have taken no action. Zero. Nada. The ordinance has been on the books since 2017. Yes, we should acknowledge 83% have taken action but that number is meaningless if you live in one of the 129 buildings that haven’t.
Councilmember Chelsea Byers said she was “very concerned to see that many properties haven’t taken action.” Councilmember John Erickson called the owners “bad actors” who are “neglecting the safety of the tenants.” Mayor John Heilman offered some counterweight, saying that not everyone on that list is a villain. Some are small mom-and-pop landlords who own one building, maybe two to four units, and don’t have the sophistication or the resources to know what’s required of them. Vice Mayor Danny Hang agreed. The Council directed staff to go beyond letters and actually call those owners using rent stabilization contact data.
The tenants in those 129 buildings have no idea. The City doesn’t tell them. The only way a renter finds out is if they go looking themselves on the City’s seismic webpage.
As for enforcement, the ordinance gives the City three options: imprisonment, a $1,000 fine, or flagging the property with the LA County Assessor so it shows up on a title search. Nobody’s going to jail. A thousand dollar fine on a building worth millions is a bit of a joke. The assessor flag matters eventually — when the owner tries to sell or refinance. It does nothing for the people living there right now.
Erickson asked staff to put together a heat map of where those 129 properties are. He suspects they’re concentrated on the Eastside and in higher-occupancy areas. Staff confirmed the data exists. It hasn’t been published.
Concrete buildings are another story
Turns out the 55 non-ductile concrete buildings are on a separate and longer timeline. Notices to comply went out to property owners starting in October 2023, with the last notices sent April 9, 2024. Because these buildings are larger and structurally more complex than soft-story wood-frame structures, the City gave owners an overall compliance window of 20 years with specific milestones built in along the way.
Non-ductile concrete is worth understanding. Unlike wood-frame buildings, which can flex and sag in an earthquake, concrete buildings tend to fail suddenly and catastrophically. They don’t bend. They pancake. Venezuela’s death toll is a reminder of what happens to dense urban areas with vulnerable building stock when major shaking starts.
A compliance roadmap for non-ductile concrete buildings is on the City’s seismic retrofit webpage.
The FEMA money may not come through
Six applications currently in the FEMA grant program have been sitting in federal review since June 2025 with no timeline and no guarantee they’ll be approved before the program closes out. Cal OES has told the City flat out — it can’t guarantee FEMA approval timelines, funding availability, or extensions. Not even if the delays are entirely on the federal side.
The whole program has to wrap up by January 3, 2027, with everything completed and documented by October 9, 2026. That’s a hard stop.
At the April 20 meeting, Council voted to cover those six applications with city money — up to $90,000 — if FEMA doesn’t come through in time. Byers supported it. You don’t leave people hanging on a grant they did everything right to apply for, she said, just because Washington can’t get its act together.
West Hollywood has its own emergency plan — and is updating it
West Hollywood does have city-specific emergency preparedness plans separate from the county. Two of them. The City’s Emergency Response Plan and its Hazard Mitigation Plan are both publicly available on the City’s website at weho.org.
The City also said it is currently developing a shorter, updated version of the Emergency Response Plan that will be publicly available by the end of 2026.
Shelter locations: Plummer Park and West Hollywood Park
In the event of a major seismic event, the City has designated two evacuation shelter locations — Plummer Park and West Hollywood Park. Which one gets activated would depend on the specifics of the event, its impacts, and operational needs at the time. Residents would be notified through the City’s emergency notification system.
West Hollywood is 1.9 square miles with limited ways in and out. Knowing where to go before an earthquake happens is not optional. If you’re not already signed up for City emergency alerts, go to weho.org and do it now. The Sheriff’s Department also recommends signing up for LA County alerts at alert.lacounty.gov.
Tenants don’t get retrofit disclosure — but they do get notified before construction starts
The City’s seismic ordinance does not require building owners to disclose retrofit status to tenants. However, owners are required to submit a Tenant Habitability Plan with their building permit application. The Rent Stabilization Division reviews that plan and requires owners to notify tenants before construction begins.
What that means practically: tenants won’t necessarily know whether their building has been retrofitted unless they ask. But if a retrofit is actively underway, they are entitled to notice before the work starts. If you’re a renter and want to know where your building stands, ask your landlord or contact the City at SeismicProgram@weho.org.
On Shoreham Drive — the fault zone argument is on shaky ground
The story that prompted our original coverage was a neighborhood appeal of a proposed six-story apartment building at 8760 Shoreham Drive. The WeHo Heights coalition argued in its appeal that the City failed to require geological fault rupture investigations because the site is near the Hollywood Fault.
The City’s response is clear. 8760 Shoreham Drive is not located within either FP1 or FP2 fault precaution zones. Under West Hollywood’s municipal code, geological investigations are required for projects within those zones. If the property isn’t in either zone, the requirement doesn’t apply.
The appeal has several other arguments beyond the fault zone question. But on this specific question, the City says the site isn’t in a regulated fault zone. The City Council hearing on the appeal has not yet been scheduled.
What you should do right now
The Sheriff’s Department reminded us all on Thursday that earthquake preparedness begins at home. I can all but guarantee you — yes you, reading this right now — have absolutely no plan. Do you?
Every individual and family should develop an emergency and communication plan, prepare for potential disruptions to utilities and cell service, identify evacuation and reunification routes, and maintain an emergency kit capable of sustaining household members for several days, if not weeks.
Drop. Cover. Hold on. Never run outside. Know how to shut off your gas line. Keep canned food and water on hand. Download the MyShake app from the Apple or Google app stores for early warning alerts. For a full preparedness checklist go to earthquake.ca.gov. For LA County resources go to ready.lacounty.gov.
What happened in Venezuela this week isn’t a distant story. It’s a preview. The Hollywood Fault hasn’t moved in 7,000 years. That’s not a reason to feel safe. It’s a reason to act now while there’s still time.
Weho has not always been an honest broker regarding the Hollywood Fault. Back when the Millennium Project was proposed, a fault was found right on Sunset at La Cienega. Activist actor GiGi Verone (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.) coordinated the commission of carbon dating the fault under the project via hiring a geologist. Determination: active. Millennium developers hired their own suspect geologist who concluded it could not be determined to have been active in the last 5,000 years (the determining factor of a live fault.) So, they overrode the original determination, endangering lives in the process. Build We Must.
OMG!