More than 100 additional homes in Rancho Palos Verdes will have power outages due to worsening landslides in the area, city officials said Monday.
This time, 105 of the 270 homes in the Seaview neighborhood will have their lights turned off starting at 7 p.m. Monday, officials said. The earth movement puts electrical equipment at risk and could spark a wildfire, among other dangers, if power lines are energized, officials said.
The power outage will affect a large swath of Seaview, a mid-century modern-style estate designed by master architect Paul Williams in 1960 that features touches like stone fireplaces, space-age light fixtures and eye-catching bursts of color atop an ocean cliff.
City officials said 47 homes will be without power for just 24 hours, but 38 will be without power for one to three weeks, and 20 more will be without power indefinitely.
This is the second power outage in two days in the area, a peninsula about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles known for its sea breezes, gorgeous views and expensive homes. On Sunday, authorities cut power to 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes, about a mile from the coast. In that case, authorities also issued an evacuation warning, meaning residents had to prepare to leave if ordered to do so.
Other neighborhoods could also lose power if conditions worsen.
The crisis is due to landslides in the area, which have been slowly shifting land for decades, suddenly accelerating, recently moving as fast as 30 centimeters a week. Officials say the cause is epic rains over the past two winters. Roads have collapsed and houses have collapsed.
“There is no playbook for an emergency like this,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said Sunday. “This is a crisis that is getting worse by the day.”
Hahn said he has committed $5 million from the county to respond to the disaster, but that the community needs support from the state. He said he wanted Gov. Gavin Newsom to “come to Rancho Palos Verdes and see the landslide with his own eyes.”
City officials have said they can't solve the problem alone. The city, which has a population of about 42,000, has been pouring resources into a solution. The landslide affects only a small portion of the city's housing stock, but fixing it will take much more than the city can do, officials said.
The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council is scheduled to hold a special meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday to declare a local state of emergency. The City Council could also vote to authorize the mayor to ask Newsom to declare a state of emergency and provide assistance.
“This is much bigger than the city itself, and without the help of our partners at the county, state and federal levels we cannot find real solutions to slow the earthworks,” said Council Member Dave Bradley.
