Power outages are becoming more frequent in the Californian community of Rancho Palos Verdes as earth movements endanger power lines
CNN
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More than 200 homes in a city near Los Angeles will have their power cut off through Monday evening because a prolonged earth movement near those homes is endangering utility lines.
“This is unprecedented,” Rancho Palos Verdes City Councilwoman Barbara Ferraro said Sunday. “Nobody really knows what to do.”
Southern California Edison cut off power to 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend community on Sunday. The outage is expected to last indefinitely as the ground shifts, endangering power poles and increasing the fire risk in the town.
“There was a fire last week,” SoCal Edison spokeswoman Kathleen Dunleavy told CNN affiliate KABC. “It was a small fire, but the fire was started when one of our lines fell due to earth movement, and that shows how dangerous this area is.”
SoCal Edison has notified another 105 customers that they will be without power Monday evening while the company continues to monitor the threat from ground movement.
Rancho Palos Verdes is a coastal community in southwest Los Angeles County, west of Long Beach. It was incorporated as an independent city in 1973.
Officials say the land in Rancho Palos Verdes has been slowly shifting for decades, but the problem is worse than it used to be. “The movement has accelerated dramatically in the last 12 months, with some areas shifting as much as 10 inches per week,” said City Councilman David Bradley. “You can almost see the ground moving.”
To encourage cautious residents to heed evacuation warnings, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said police are increasing patrols in the community and using drones to watch for looters. “You’re going to jail if you come here to steal anything,” Luna said at a news conference Sunday.
Rancho Palos Verdes has been under a local state of emergency since October 2023, and the Portuguese Bend neighborhood had its natural gas service shut off on July 29.
Fourth District Supervisor Janice Hahn said Sunday that Los Angeles County has allocated an additional $5 million to respond to the disaster, and she hopes Gov. Gavin Newsom will declare a state of emergency in Rancho Palos Verdes himself.
“Yes, this landslide has been going on for decades, but the acceleration that is now taking place exceeds anything any of us could have predicted, and it requires a stronger response from the states, a stronger response from the federal government,” Hahn said.
