By Mary O’KEEFE

The news for Rancho Palos Verdes just keeps getting worse as Southern California Edison (SCE) cut off electricity on Sunday. I can’t imagine the fear residents must be feeling as the ground moves beneath their homes and one by one utility companies disconnect and begin to move away.

This ground movement in the Portuguese Bend Community in Rancho Palos Verdes has affected more than 200 homes. Californians are used to dealing with fire, flood and earthquakes but this is new for many, although the land has been moving in this area for decades.

SCE notified a little more than 100 customers that they were to lose power on Monday night. LA County Sheriff Dept. Sheriff Robert Luna said he would have extra patrols, along with drones, in the neighborhood to curb any looting.

According to Rancho Palos Verdes City website, 105 of 270 Seaview houses would have their electricity service discontinued for varying lengths of time. There will be 47 homes without power for 24 hours, 38 properties without power for one to three weeks and 20 properties will be without power “indefinitely,” according to the City’s website.

If you remember, it was just over a month ago that Southern California Gas shut off its utility in the area due to the land movement.

On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency for the City of Rancho Palos Verdes “to protect public safety amid ongoing land movement that has resulted in disrupted utility services and evacuation warnings for impacted residents.”

“The Portuguese Bend Landslide is part of a larger complex of ancient landslides on the south side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. It was reactivated in 1956 by Los Angeles County’s planned extension of Crenshaw Boulevard and has been moving ever since, becoming one of the largest continuously active landslides in the U.S. and moving homes by hundreds of feet over the years. The land moves because of the dynamics of surface water percolating into the ground and water trapped deep underground, sliding as much as 8.5 feet per year,” according to the City’s website.

The City leaders knew this was an issue and voted a study be done in 2019, but the area has seen a “significant increase in land movement.”

You know when you stand on the sand at the beach and the water flows over your feet then pulls away and you feel that sand pulling away from beneath you …. well, that’s a little like what is happening to the ground beneath those houses. Not quite as quickly as the water leaving the shore and it is much more devastating.

It was in 2023 when the City of Rolling Hills Estates on Peartree Lane, not too far from Palos Verdes, had 12 homes red-tagged and evacuated “with an additional five units subsequently being yellow-tagged [due to] damage to utilities serving those homes,” according to Rolling Hills Estates website.

These houses were being damaged by land movement.

There are a lot of areas, especially near the beach, where land movement can easily be seen and can cause some sleepless nights for homeowners. I used to work years ago in a large old house near a cliff side in the San Diego area. The house was across the street from the cliff side. There was this cute little tree that was just at the edge of the cliff; then one day the tree was gone. The next month a lot of the area, including an area where we had a picnic a few months earlier, was gone. The following months saw more and more land fall into the sea until finally the street was gone and the cliff had crept to the edge of the house’s property. Eventually those in the large old house had to move as the ground continued to give way.

The increased movement of Rancho Palos Verdes land is due in part to the record rainfall Southern California received at the end of last year and beginning of this year. There is no sign that extreme weather will slow down, so we should expect more of these types of land movements – and the consequences – to occur.

For us in the Crescenta Valley we know all too well the power of rain. In the 1930s residents saw a record-breaking flood that caused water and mud to flow from the mountains throughout the valley. Then in 2010, after the Station Fire, flooding ran through houses and vehicles and debris floated down the streets.

So again, Mother Nature has all the power regardless of our most advanced technology. Whether it is above land or under, extreme rains can affect us all and should be respected.

For the next few days rain is not something we can expect in the weather report. Heat will be the star of the show. There is an excessive heat warning in effect from Sept. 4 at 11 a.m. to Sept. 6 at 6 p.m.

Dangerously hot conditions with peak temperatures of 95 to 110 are possible. The hottest days are today, Thursday, and Friday and warm overnight low temperatures that will bring little relief from the heat, according to NOAA.

Friday is expected to see a high of 102 degrees with a low around 72. Saturday will see 99 degrees, Sunday 95 and Monday 92.

With all of this heat, people are advised to drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun and check up on relatives and neighbors.

And do not leave young children and pets in unattended vehicles. Car interiors will reach lethal temperatures in a matter of minutes, according to NOAA.

Glendale Cooling Center dates and hours of operation: Adult Recreation Center, 201 E. Colorado St. in Glendale from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sparr Heights Community Center, 1613 Glencoe Way in Glendale from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Maple Park Community Center, 820 E. Maple St. in Glendale from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Pacific Community Center, 501 S. Pacific Ave. in Glendale from 10 a.m. to
8 p.m.