Worsening landslide forces power cut to 105 more homes in Rancho Palos Verdes

More than 100 additional homes in Rancho Palos Verdes will have their power cut because of worsening landslides in the area, city officials said Monday.

This time, 105 of the 270 homes in the Seaview neighborhood will see the lights turned off as of 7 p.m. Monday, officials said. The shifting earth puts electrical equipment at risk and could spark a wildfire among other dangers if power lines are electrified, officials said.

The power shut-off will impact a large swath of Seaview, a Midcentury Modern tract designed by master architect Paul Williams in 1960 that features touches such as stone fireplaces, space-age light fixtures and eye-popping bursts of color atop an ocean bluff.

City officials said 47 homes will be without power for just 24 hours, but 38 will have to do without for one to three weeks, and 20 more are losing power indefinitely.

This is the second power shut-off in as many days in the area, a peninsula about 30 miles south of downtown Los Angeles famous for its sea breezes, gorgeous views, and expensive homes. On Sunday, officials shut off power to 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes, about a mile up the coast. In that case, officials also issued an evacuation warning, meaning residents had to prepare to leave should they be ordered to do so.

Other neighborhoods could also lose power if conditions worsen.

The crisis comes because landslides in the area, which have been shifting the earth slowly for decades, have suddenly accelerated, moving as much as a foot a week recently. Among the causes, officials have said, are the epic rains of the last two winters. Roads have buckled. Homes have crumbled.

“There is no playbook for an emergency like this one,” Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said Sunday. “This is a crisis that is getting worse by the day.”

Hahn said she has committed $5 million from the county to respond to the disaster, but that the community needs state support. She said she wanted Gov. Gavin Newsom “to come to Rancho Palos Verdes and see the landslide for himself.”

City officials have said they cannot solve the problem by themselves. 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 homes, but fixing it will require much more than the city can do, officials said.

The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council is set to hold a special meeting at 3 p.m. Tuesday to declare a local state of emergency. The 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 help from our partners at the county, state and federal level we can’t come up with real solutions to retard the land movement,” City Councilmember Dave Bradley said.