Tom Keefer can only describe the past few weeks in his Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhood as a nightmare.
Being cut off from essential services for more than a month Active landslides the boundaries of which Not yet determinedKiefer and his wife have seen their lives turned upside-down by the growing emergency in ways they never imagined.
Tom Keefer stands next to a generator outside his home in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes.
(Wally Scalise/Los Angeles Times)
Beyond Closed roadsdamaged houses and Altered landscape Due to destructive and constant land movement, they find themselves struggling to safely store food and obtain stable electricity, while repeatedly running to the gas station for more ice and propane to keep their home and lives afloat.
“We are very upset,” said Kiefer, 67. “It’s not only emotionally stressful, it’s financially stressful as well.”
Amid the long list of challenges that face daily life in the Portuguese Bend community, the predominant feelings among many residents are growing anxiety and frustration — and even anger — because they see no accountability, answers or help from anyone in charge.
“The sad thing is there hasn’t really been any help, it’s been extraordinary,” Keefer said. “There hasn’t been any funding. … It’s only by helping each other that we’re making progress.”
The loss of natural resources has only made the emergency for the Keifers and their neighbors even worse. Gas at the end of July. Gas and then electricity supply has stopped in four areas Two cities on the Palos Verdes PeninsulaAbout 300 homes no longer have electricity and 224 homes no gas – forever. Many homes don’t have both.
Utility companies have said ongoing land movement has made it unsafe to provide gas and electricity in some areas, and have expressed concerns about infrastructure breakdowns, potential wildfires and other hazards caused by system failures.
In addition to losing power and water, residents of the 146 homes in the Portuguese Bend neighborhood — including Keefer and his wife — also lost their landline internet connection when Cox Communications shut down its service this month.
“It’s scary because it’s bigger than anybody imagined,” said Sally Reeves, who is trying to figure out how to live safely on her Portuguese Bend property despite the lack of utilities — not to mention the giant crack that runs through her Home of over 40 yearsBefore this winter, she and her husband had not seen any landslide damage on their property.
Sally Reeves, whose Rancho Palos Verdes home is sliding, uses a generator to run her appliances.
(Wally Scalise/Los Angeles Times)
Reeves, 81, doesn’t want a scene like hers to happen to anyone, but she hopes that because more people than ever will be affected, it will spark more attention and action to save her beautiful corner of Los Angeles County as it continues to slip toward the ocean.
Yet months into the growing crisis, it remains unclear where that help will come from, nor the full reach and capacity of the landslide complex that officials determined last month was a serious disaster. deeper and possibly larger This perhaps explains the unprecedented activity in areas where no change had been recorded before.
Governor Gavin Newsom A state of emergency was declared for Rancho Palos Verdes after the shutoffs this month, but that doesn’t bring any relief to homeowners or money to deal with the underlying geological forces that are causing even further damage. Nor does it extend to the city of Rolling Hills, where 50 houses lost power And dozens of other locations lost gas last week as land slid in their mountainous areas that had not previously been considered vulnerable to recent landslides.
However, the state’s declaration will help the city of Rancho Palos Verdes cover expenses caused by the power outages, including the cost of fuel used to keep generators and sewer systems running.
Utility companies have not offered any specific plans for bringing service back. Instead, they have said more shutoffs are possible — though only as a last resort — with a SoCal Edison spokesperson calling it a “fluid situation.”
Sally Reeves is filling up storage containers while emptying out her badly damaged home.
(Wally Scalise/Los Angeles Times)
Rancho Palos Verdes officials are hoping to slow the land’s movement with the help of five new water-prevention wells, which they are in the process of installing at the deepest level ever drilled. The wells are intended to reduce groundwater pressure at the newly discovered deep slip plane, or surface that could induce landslide failure.
However, city officials have acknowledged they don’t know how effective the pilot project will be.
Meanwhile, Rolling Hills officials are struggling to respond to the crisis, while also attempting to distinguish the city’s “significantly different” land movement from the one experienced in Rancho Palos Verdes. Still, city officials reported this month that the land movement had damaged three homes and a door at the local Los Angeles County fire station and caused multiple cracks and water main breaks — and now they face utility shutoffs.
“My family, along with all of my neighbors, are struggling to deal with the severe consequences of the actions ordered by SoCalGas and (Edison),” Rolling Hills Mayor Leah Mirsch said in a statement. “This is devastating for all of us on so many levels.”
Mirsch said the city took every practical measure to prevent or delay these shutoffs, but to no avail. He said the city is now committed to holding utility companies accountable and “putting pressure on them to implement solutions that will restore service quickly and safely.”
Sally Reeves uses a generator to run her appliances. About 300 homes are without power.
(Wally Scalise/Los Angeles Times)
All the unknowns have many people living in the area worried. For Steven Barker, it’s literally a reality: His home in the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes is on the brink of a growing sinkhole. He’s lost gas service, but not electricity — yet.
“It’s turned our world upside down. We’re just trying to get by,” said Barker, 52. “We’re trying to figure out what to do.”
She worries about losing power — something she’s been told can happen at any time — but she’s most concerned about what the rain might do to the sinkhole, which has created waves in her street and is pulling away from one side of her house.
“If the water flows in that spot we’re in big trouble,” Barker said, shaking his head as he looked at the large cracks that have spread across the street in front of his home. “Will this continue? We don’t know.”
Barker has asked city and public works officials for months to fix the sinkhole, but “nobody is helping us,” he said. “The governor, he hasn’t even looked at (the landslide damage). … He should be here, this is way bigger than the RPVs can handle. Way bigger than the utility companies can handle. …. We need help from very high (levels), state, federal — we need the Army Corps of Engineers.”
Their fears about the upcoming rains are echoed in communities that have been fighting land agitation for months. It is undeniable that the landslide activity is caused by a rise in groundwater, which officials have linked to the heavy rainfall Southern California has received over the past two years. Many residents also worry that it is exacerbated by poor drainage and frequent water main breaks.
Some utility services are down in the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“Do you know how scared everybody is about the first rain?” said Keefer’s wife, Cindy, 63. “Nothing is being done to prevent a major catastrophe. … We don’t want sympathy, we want work to be done — now.”
He said he felt alone, left behind to figure out a way to prevent landslides and live off the grid without the help of experts, engineers or officials. He has put much of his energy into a community-run program art auctions, The aim of which is to raise funds to combat the growing emergency and save our beloved homes.
Jan Seal, who lives in the Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhood above the Portuguese Bend Reserve, said she and her husband have been closely monitoring the landslide developments and are glad they don’t live on one of the many cliffs overlooking the landslide zone, though they aren’t too far away.
“When you hear that it’s happening in areas that weren’t a problem before, and they say it’s moving faster than before … I think people always panic,” he said.
For Barker and his family, it meant weeks of taking cold showers, eating out and crock-pot meals and grappling with the impossible math of which investments — installing a bigger propane tank, converting gas-powered appliances, switching to solar panels — were feasible or even possible for a home on the brink of disaster.
“If I lose my house … I won’t have the money to buy another house,” Barker said. “Are they going to let a neighborhood like this go and let people be homeless?”
