Malibu Declares Emergency, Evacuates 31 Homes Over Growing Sinkhole
The house where the hole opened belongs to Nicolas Cage.
Holly Bieler · September 9, 2026 · Malibu
Malibu declared a local emergency Tuesday evening and ordered 31 homes evacuated on Sea Level Drive, where a sinkhole that opened beneath a driveway early that morning has kept growing, [the city announced](https://www.malibucity.org/m/newsflash/home/detail/2151).
The home where the hole opened belongs to Nicolas Cage, according to property records cited by the Los Angeles Times. The actor bought the four-level beachfront house, on a gated street above Lechuza Beach, for $10.5 million in 2024, [The New York Times reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/09/us/malibu-sinkhole-nicolas-cage-house.html). A representative for Cage had not responded to requests for comment.
By Tuesday evening the sinkhole measured roughly 30 by 60 feet and about 30 feet deep, up from the 30-by-30-foot hole county fire crews found around 5:45 a.m. when they responded to a suspected gas leak. The city said the hole likely began forming a day earlier.
Seven homes have been red-tagged for hazardous conditions. Another 24 were being tagged because the collapse took out most of the road, leaving a strip too narrow for fire engines and other large emergency vehicles, according to the [emergency proclamation](https://malibucity.org/DocumentCenter/View/38668/Emergency-Proclamation---Sea-Level-Sinkholedoc). The City Council was not in session and could not be convened, so the city's director of emergency services issued the declaration after consulting with county fire and sheriff's officials.
Sheriff's deputies went door to door notifying residents, and the city sent an alert through Everbridge. The Red Cross has opened a temporary shelter at Malibu High School. Gas to the area has been shut off while SoCalGas works on the leak, and the city warned that water service could be cut next. There is no word yet on how long the evacuation order will last.
Officials expect conditions to get worse before they get better. High tides and rain from the remnants of Hurricane Marie are forecast to keep pounding the coast, and the National Weather Service kept its high surf and coastal flood advisories in place through 11 p.m. Tuesday, with breaking waves of 4 to 7 feet. The proclamation also pointed to this winter's strengthening El Niño, which it said brings a high risk of record sea levels and severe coastal flooding to the California coast.
A longtime homeowner on the street told [Los Angeles magazine](https://lamag.com/news/then-all-hell-broke-loose-massive-sinkhole-opens-beneath-nicolas-cages-malibu-driveway/) that neighbors initially assumed the hole could be patched quickly, before, as the homeowner put it, all hell broke loose.
The sinkhole is the latest in a rough summer for Malibu's coast. Westward Beach Road, the access road to Point Dume, closed indefinitely in early August after high surf ate away at the roadway, and a week later the City Council declared an emergency over wildfire conditions after fuel moisture in the Santa Monica Mountains dropped below the city's hazard threshold.