Hundreds of coastal California homes lose power as landslides intensify

As landslides continue to threaten the community of Rancho Palos Verdes, hundreds of homes in the southern California city have lost power.

Governor Gavin Newsom imposed a state of emergency on Monday as officials cut power to 245 homes in the seaside community, about 25 miles (40km) south of Los Angeles, due to worsening land movement. The electricity provider in the region, Southern California Edison, shut off power to 140 homes on Sunday and another 105 on Monday, citing the risk of igniting fires.

While the city has long dealt with landslides, a historic storm in February intensified and accelerated the movements leading to shifts as great as 1ft a week. Rancho Palos Verdes is now grappling with buckling streets, buildings sinking and cracking and hundreds of families forced to leave their homes, said Janice Hahn, a Los Angeles county supervisor, at a news conference on Monday.

“I think we’re all learning there is no playbook for an emergency like this one,” Hahn said. “What we do know is many families are struggling, are suffering, are feeling great anxiety about what is happening. They are watching their homes – they are watching their streets – crumble around them.”

The supervisor called on the governor to visit the region, adding, “This is bigger than Rancho Palos Verdes. This land movement is so gigantic and so damaging that one city or one homeowners organization should not have to bear this burden alone.” She said that although this had been an issue for decades, the movement was now accelerating “beyond what any of us could have foretold”.

Southern California Edison notified Rancho Palos Verdes that electricity service would be discontinued at multiple homes due to fire risk because of the ongoing movement.

Larry Chung, SoCal Edison’s vice-president of the customer engagement division, said the land movement had “created such a dangerous situation that we must make that difficult decision to disconnect power indefinitely”. Residents of the affected neighborhood previously suffered gas shutoffs in July.

Chung called the current emergency “unprecedented”, saying: “We have an obligation not only to serve but a higher obligation to ensure the safety of our community.”

City officials said they were “identifying hotels and other accommodations that can offer discounted rates for residents” affected by the loss of power.

The latest power shutoff will affect the Seaview neighborhood, which was designed in 1960 by the architect Paul Williams.

Earlier this year, landslides in the region led to the dismantling of the Wayfarers chapel, Frank Lloyd Wright Jr’s celebrated glass sanctuary. The chapel’s leaders took it apart before it was destroyed by the land movement, with hopes of someday relocating it to a more stable site.

Last year, hillside homes in the affluent Rolling Hills Estates in Los Angeles crumbled and cracked due to similar cliffside shifts, leading to rushed evacuations.