California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for the Southern California city of Rancho Palos Verdes, where a landslide has threatened homes and caused the local utility provider to cut off electricity and gas to 245 residences due to broken pipes and power lines causing hazards.
On Tuesday afternoon, Newsom issued the declaration for the Los Angeles city community after local elected leaders held a news conference over the weekend and repeated their request that he act.
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said it has been coordinating with the city and county for nearly a year to support the response to the landslide, including providing technical assistance, supporting the local assistance center, facilitating a federal mitigation grant for groundwater work in the area and helping officials with initial damage estimates.
The Impact on Residents
Residents in the growing landslide zone, which has spread about 680 acres over the past year, have been advised to leave the area after SCE shut off power to 245 homes on Sunday and Monday and said many of them will be without electricity and gas indefinitely.
"We can not predict how much the slide will accelerate in the coming weeks and months," Larry Chung, vice president of Southern California Edison (SCE), said during the meeting Tuesday evening.
Chung maintained during the meeting that there is "no timeframe" for power restoration in the impacted areas due to the instability of the land.
"The safety of the community members and crews remains our highest priority," he added.
In January, Sallie Reeves told ABC News that she began noticing little cracks in the walls and floors of her Rancho Palos Verdes home of four decades. But by Tuesday, those cracks had turned into a widening fissure running through her home, wrecking room after room as the earth has been moving under her house at what she estimates is 12 inches a week.
Like Reeves, residents in the oceanfront community have been coping with a landslide crisis that is making their homes uninhabitable.
"This just kept getting worse, and we had animals coming in," the 81-year-old Reeves told ABC News, pointing to where her home has split in half, exposing her master bedroom to the outdoors.
"This has been a hard pill to swallow," Reeves told ABC News, adding that her husband is disabled.
She said she and her husband have had to move out of their master bedroom after damage to their roof caused a leak so bad she said it was as if "someone just turned a hose on our bed."
Over the last four months, she said things have worsened as parts of her ceiling have collapsed, and a space between her outdoor deck and home has widened to about 18 inches. Reeves said she and her husband began sleeping in their living room until the landslide made it uninhabitable. She said now they've moved to a rear bedroom.
A Growing Crisis
Rancho Palos Verdes is located about 30 miles south of Los Angeles.
"There is no playbook for an emergency like this one," Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who represents the area, said at a news conference Sunday. "We're sparing no expense. This is bigger than Rancho Palos Verdes. This land movement is so gigantic and so damaging that one city should not have to bear the burden alone."
Hahn said the county has committed $5 million to respond to the disaster.
Officials said the shifting land has caused water and gas pipes to leak, and the city has been forced to red-tag at least two homes made uninhabitable by damage.
"Yes, this landslide has been moving for decades, but the acceleration that's happening currently is beyond what any of us could have foretold, and it demands more response from the state, more response from the federal government," Hahn said.
Evacuation warnings have been issued for part of the city. However, residents like Reeves said they are not leaving their homes.
"When people say., 'Why don’t you just go someplace? I can’t take him just someplace," Reeves said of her disabled husband, who is also in his 80s. "I can’t go to a hotel. He can’t get in the beds. I’m his 24-hour care."
Reeves said she is working with a contractor on plans to lift her home and build a steel foundation that will sit on cribbing, repairs she expects will be out-of-pocket expenses.
"I would be thrilled to show Gavin Newsom my house because I'm not the only one that lives like this," Reeves said. "This is what Mother Nature is doing."
The Road Ahead
The state of emergency declaration is aimed at freeing up resources for Rancho Palos Verdes to address the ongoing crisis, including providing financial assistance and access to state personnel and equipment. It also activates California’s anti-price gouging law, which limits rent increases to no more than 10% above pre-emergency levels.
The situation in Rancho Palos Verdes highlights the challenges facing coastal communities as climate change continues to intensify. As sea levels rise and storms become more frequent and severe, the risk of landslides and other coastal hazards will only increase. The city’s experience serves as a warning to other coastal communities and underscores the need for proactive planning and investment in infrastructure resilience to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
