Southern California Edison shut off power to 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes on Sunday as continuing land movement created unsafe conditions, triggering an evacuation warning.
It was another blow to residents of the neighborhood, who lost gas service weeks ago.
“The land movement there has created such a dangerous situation that we must make that difficult decision to disconnect power indefinitely,” said David Eisenhauer, a SoCal Edison spokesperson.
“We never want to have to turn off power unless we absolutely must,” he said. “In this case, we absolutely must. We have an obligation that’s higher than providing electric service, and that obligation is safety: safety of the community and safety of our teams.”
Eisenhauer declined to speculate on when or if power might be restored to the affected homes.
“The conditions continue to evolve,” he said. “Our obligation is safety first.”
The city has issued an evacuation warning for the neighborhood, which means residents need to start preparing to leave.
“If you have animals, children, or need additional time evacuating, this is the time to leave,” the city said on the social platform X. An evacuation order would mean that residents need to leave immediately.
“If and when we actually have to evacuate because it’s hard for our residents to be there, we will work with the Sheriff’s Department to go house to house and make sure that people that do remain, do so safely,” City Councilman Dave Bradley said.
Pat Burt, a 52-year resident of the Portuguese Bend community, prepares after Sunday’s evacuation warning. Burt and many of his neighbors are not evacuating and instead are gathering supplies to continue living in their homes.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Recently, land movement in the area has continued to be recorded at unprecedented rates: as much as a foot a week. That’s created increasing challenges for residents, first responders, city officials and utilities, as infrastructure damage and safety concerns escalate.
The homes that lost power were notified Saturday of the impending shut-off. Those residents are the same ones who had their gas service cut almost a month ago.
Portuguese Bend resident Mike Hong said Saturday that he’d learned of the impending shut-off only an hour earlier.
“They are giving us even less time than the gas company,” said Hong, who has been cooking with hot plates, an option that will end Sunday. “Don’t abandon us. Where’s the humanity in this?”
Moving containers sit outside a home in Rancho Palos Verdes’ Portuguese Bend community, where an evacuation warning has been issued due to electricity shut-offs.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
SoCal Edison had warned residents that this was a possibility after gas service was cut. Eisenhauer said there wasn’t one issue that led to this decision, but said it was made to “keep the community safe.”
On Thursday, a small fire ignited near Narcissa Drive in Portuguese Bend. Eisenhauer said it started after a power line fell and sparked nearby vegetation. Though the blaze was quickly extinguished, he said the incident demonstrated the perilous state of things.
“We know this is a difficult time for Rancho Palos Verdes and we’ve been looking for ways to keep the power flowing,” Eisenhauer said. “At this point land movement has created such a dangerous situation that we must make the difficult decision to disconnect power indefinitely.”
Eisenhauer said there are no other immediate plans to extend the power shut-off to nearby neighborhoods also facing land movement, but said it’s a fluid situation that the utility is “monitoring constantly.”
He said SoCal Edison will have a “community crew vehicle” in the neighborhood by Sunday with water and information for residents. He said the utility is not providing generators because the ground in most places is not stable enough to install them.
City officials have said that losing electricity would create new safety issues, because power is key for telecommunications lines, the sewer system and the fleet of pumps that help mitigate ongoing land movement by expelling the groundwater that geologists say causes it.
The neighborhood still has a working sewer system because the city installed portable generators procured by the Portuguese Bend Community Assn. to power the sewer lift system, City Manager Ara Mihranian said.
Officials with California Water Service, which provides the area with water, have said they have no plans to discontinue their service, but it isn’t yet clear if that might have changed in recent days.
Effectively responding to the slide will require outside assistance, Councilman Bradley said.
“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,” he said.
Southern California Edison, which shut off power Sunday in Portuguese Bend due to unsafe conditions created by landslides, set up a community resource center in the neighborhood.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
