West Hollywood’s Earthquake Threat Isn’t the San Andreas. It’s Closer Than That

Nine miles long. Capable of a magnitude 7. And it runs right through the middle of West Hollywood. Your building might be sitting on it right now. Here’s what you need to know.

West Hollywood has a development fight brewing on Shoreham Drive. The WeHo Heights coalition, in its appeal of the City’s approval of a six-story building at 8760 Shoreham Drive, argued the City never required geological studies to evaluate fault-related risks at the site. That’s a local fight with a local hook. But it’s a good reminder that West Hollywood sits on top of one of the region’s lesser-known but significant earthquake faults — one that runs directly under the Sunset Strip.

WEHOonline shared last week new research showing the San Andreas Fault system is under its highest tectonic stress in a thousand years. The Hollywood Fault is a separate system. But it’s worth understanding what it is, where it runs, and what West Hollywood residents should actually know about it.

The Hollywood Fault stretches roughly nine miles from Atwater Village west to West Hollywood. In our lifetime, it hasn’t produced a significant earthquake. Seismologists say it’s still active.

It’s capable of producing a magnitude 7 earthquake. It would rupture the earth’s surface on an east-west path north of Hollywood Boulevard and south of the Hollywood Hills. The last time it did anything like that was more than 7,000 years ago. Geologists are not reassured by that fact.

In West Hollywood, the fault runs along Sunset Boulevard — the Sunset Strip. Buildings flagged as needing further seismic study pointed to several iconic landmarks on the Strip, including the Andaz West Hollywood, the (former) Mondrian, the Standard (now PUBLIC West Hollywood), and Sunset Tower.

The West Hollywood neighborhoods most at risk are on the City’s Westside. West Hollywood Heights is the area north of Sunset Boulevard that includes North Clark Street, Larrabee Street, Horn Avenue, and Shoreham and Sherbourne drives. Most of that neighborhood sits within an earthquake fault zone, a liquefaction zone, or both.

The Norma Triangle — north of Santa Monica Boulevard and south of Sunset between Doheny Drive and San Vicente Boulevard — is in earthquake fault zones, liquefaction zones, or both. Tri West, north of Melrose and south of Santa Monica between the Pacific Design Center and La Cienega, is in a liquefaction zone. So is West Hollywood West, north of Beverly Boulevard and south of Melrose between Doheny and La Cienega.

The part of town known as Center City — Sunset down to the City’s southern border between La Cienega and Fairfax — has some fault zone and liquefaction exposure near Sunset. The Eastside — south of Fountain between Fairfax and La Brea — has none. No earthquake fault, liquefaction, or landslide zones at all. Liquefaction is what happens when shaking turns certain soils temporarily liquid. Buildings on top of that kind of ground are far more likely to collapse. If you remember what happened to the Marina District in the Loma Prieta quake, this is the same thing.

The California Geologic Survey’s EQ Zapp tool at conservation.ca.gov/cgs/geohazards/eq-zapp lets you type in any West Hollywood address and see exactly which hazard zones apply to your property if you want to check it out. You can put in your address and it’ll show you which hazard zones impact where you live or work. obviously, where the fault runs matters and what’s built on top of it matters even more.

The City of West Hollywood hired Degenkolb Engineers back in 2015 to survey the entire building stock. Degenkolb’s initial survey identified approximately 780 soft-story wood-frame buildings. Those are the buildings with open ground-floor parking — typically built in the 1950s and 1960s — that are especially prone to collapse in a major earthquake. They also identified 55 non-ductile concrete buildings, 31 steel moment-frame buildings constructed before the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and another 60 buildings at risk for other reasons.

Caltech seismologist Dr. Thomas Heaton said back in 2019 the most important risk from the Hollywood Fault isn’t the ground rupturing — it’s what happens to vulnerable buildings when the shaking starts. Many of them would collapse. Many of the people inside them don’t know they’re in one.

Approximately 80% of West Hollywood residents live in apartments. Many are rent-controlled. A catastrophic quake that would destroy much or even a lot of that housing stock would be nearly impossible to recover from. That’s partly why the City launched the mandatory seismic retrofit ordinance back in 2017.

There’s a FEMA-funded grant program to help building owners cover retrofit costs. It’s winding down. Phase 1 construction applications are open until September 1, 2026. Phase 2 stopped taking applications in February. No more money is coming after this cycle ends.

Building owners who haven’t filed anything yet are almost out of time. Reach the City’s seismic program at SeismicProgram@weho.org.

The CGS map that lets you check your address for a hazard zone designation doesn’t mean your building is condemned. It just means the question is worth asking your landlord.

If it’s a soft story building that has what’s known as tuck-under parking, the kind that looks like an open ground floor is used for parking, those are flagged most often. If you’re renting in one and don’t know whether it’s been retrofitted, ask the owner. If you’ve lived there for a minute then you would know since you’ve likely had to deal with retrofit construction. If you own one, and you’re not sure then you need to check with the City now. Time is running out.

A soft-story retrofit can take two to six months to complete. Most tenants can stay put while the work happens; crews reinforce the ground floor without displacing anyone. The permitting process adds time ahead of that, but aside from dust and noise you shouldn’t be too bothered by the work. Besides, we can all agree, the result is worth any inconvenience. Reminder that the owner cannot put the retrofit cost onto you by way of a rent increase. 

What the City should be doing — and what residents should be asking

The soft-story retrofit ordinance was adopted in April 2017. Nine years later, the City has internal data on how many of those 780-plus buildings have actually completed retrofits versus how many have only filed paperwork. How much of that has been shared publicly is not clear. It’s a fair thing to ask.

Soft-story buildings get most of the attention but they may not be the biggest problem. Degenkolb flagged 55 non-ductile concrete buildings in West Hollywood. Concrete doesn’t bend in an earthquake. It pancakes. What the mandatory compliance picture looks like for those structures is not something the City has publicized.

West Hollywood is 1.9 square miles with limited ways in and out. The county has an emergency plan. What West Hollywood has specifically — its own assembly points, its own chain of command in the first hour, its own communications plan for when cell towers and power go down — is worth knowing before it’s needed.

Renters are a gap nobody talks about much. Retrofit compliance notices go to building owners. Tenants often have no idea whether the building they sleep in has been addressed. Whether West Hollywood requires landlords to disclose retrofit status to renters is a question worth putting to the City.

The Shoreham Drive appeal asks something that goes beyond one building on one street. West Hollywood’s municipal code requires geological investigations for projects in fault precaution zones. The WeHo Heights appeal alleges that didn’t happen at 8760 Shoreham Drive. If that’s accurate, the question is how consistently that requirement is being applied across the City.

These are questions WEHOonline will be putting to the City of West Hollywood in a follow-up story. We’ll report back with answers when we get them. If you have questions you’d like us to ask, leave them in the comments below

The script isn’t locked

Everyone worries about the box office baddie known as the San Andreas. It makes sense, the recent science is scary and the scale is hard to imagine. But West Hollywood has its own disaster movie to think about. It runs under the Strip. It runs under your neighborhood. It runs under your building. A magnitude 7 on the Hollywood Fault is not a distant threat. It’s local and it’s legit. The ending to this scary movie is still up for grabs and you can help direct how this movie ends.

Do your part to be prepared: property owners need to invest in earthquake insurance and take advantage of the state’s generous retrofit programs. All residents and businesses owners need to know what to do in the event — drop, cover and hold on. Never run outside. Make a plan for each room where you can protect yourself. Learn how to turn off your gas line. Always keep a small stock of canned foods and several of gallons of water on hand. And of course, extra food supplies for your fur babies. While these tips are the bare minimum basics, they can help to keep you alive. For a full list head over to www.earthquake.ca.gov

Finally, get alerts via the MyShake app. You can get from both Apple and Google app stores. The warning system and follow-up messaging it offers can help to save lives. 

I get it, trust me, I do. I’ve done it. The temptation to look away and say “whatever,” the experts have been predicting The Big One for so long. It’s a case of the boy who “cried earthquake” for too long. But it’s here… and it’s coming. It’s the San Andreas. The San Jacinto. The Puente Hills fault sitting blind beneath downtown. The Newport-Inglewood that killed 120 people in Long Beach in 1933. The Santa Monica fault running parallel to the Hollywood fault just a mile away. The Sierra Madre. The Raymond. And right here — the Hollywood Fault, under the Strip, under your building. At your doorstep.

Don’t be the one who looked away and lost it all.