Weeks after homes in the Portuguese Bend neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes lost gas due to a dangerous earth movement, Southern California Edison officials have dealt another blow to those living in the worsening mudslide complex: The power will be shut off at noon Sunday.
Residents of 140 homes, as well as some nearby city equipment powered by the utility, will have power lines disabled indefinitely, said David Eisenhauer, a spokesman for SoCal Edison.
“The ground is too unstable,” he said. “It has become too dangerous for us to continue supplying power.”
Rancho Palos Verdes issued an evacuation warning for the Portuguese Bend area shortly after 3 p.m. Saturday, citing the impending loss of power. It said people there should not use water or plumbing after the power is out, because doing so could “result in a sewer spill.”
Recently, the area has continued to move at an unprecedented rate – up to 30 centimetres per week. This has created increasing challenges for residents, first responders, city officials and utilities, as infrastructure damage and safety concerns mount.
On Saturday, residents were notified that they will be without power. These are the same residents who had their gas service cut off almost a month ago.
Portuguese Bend resident Mike Hong said Saturday he learned of the impending power outage only an hour earlier.
“They are giving us even less time than the gas company,” said Hong, who has been cooking on stoves, an option that will end on Sunday. “Don’t abandon us. Where is the humanity in this?”
SoCal Edison had warned residents that this was a possibility after gas service was shut off. Eisenhauer said there was no single issue that led to this decision, but said it was made to “keep the community safe.”
On Thursday, a small fire broke out near Narcissa Drive in Portuguese Bend. Eisenhauer said it started after a power line fell and sparked fires in nearby vegetation. Although the fire was quickly extinguished, he said the incident demonstrated the dangerous state of affairs.
“We know this is a difficult time for Rancho Palos Verdes and we have been looking for ways to keep the power on,” Eisenhauer said. “At this point, the earth movement has created such a dangerous situation that we must make the difficult decision to shut off the power indefinitely.”
Eisenhauer said there are no other immediate plans to extend the power outage to nearby neighborhoods also facing earth movements, but said it is a fluid situation that the utility is “constantly monitoring.”
He said SoCal Edison will have a “community equipment vehicle” in the neighborhood on Sunday with water and information for residents. He said the utility is not providing generators because the ground is not stable enough to install them.
City officials have said losing power would create new safety concerns because power is key to telecommunications lines, the sewer system and the fleet of pumps that help mitigate the ongoing earth movement by forcing out groundwater that geologists say causes it.
Representatives for the city of Rancho Palos Verdes did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Officials with the California Water Authority, which provides water to the area, have said they have no plans to interrupt service, but it remains unclear whether that might have changed in recent days.
