With less than 24 hours’ notice, Nikki Noushkam learned Sunday that Southern California Edison was shutting off power to her home indefinitely.
“I have to vacate my house that I have lived [in] for almost 20 years,” Noushkam said during a special Rancho Palos Verdes City Council meeting Tuesday to discuss the latest blow to residents of the besieged community: losing electrical service due to unprecedented landslides that authorities fear could spark brush fires.
Noushkam is one of more than 200 homeowners in the Portuguese Bend and Seaview neighborhoods whose power was shut off by Edison over Labor Day weekend. She and her neighbors are now struggling to continue performing daily tasks — cooking meals, taking showers, doing laundry — with no certainty when utilities will once again be switched on for good.
Nikki Noushkam delivers an emotional plea for action as the Seaview resident attends a special meeting to discuss power shutoffs and evacuation plans for Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhoods affected by landslides.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Noushkam feels frustrated and helpless as she scrambles to save her house.
“[You all] made me homeless,” she said. “Help me out.”
The Palos Verdes Peninsula has been beset by coastal ground movement since the early days of home development. But the rapidly worsening conditions have raised existential questions for the city about how to help residents and how bad the landslide will get. The city’s landmark Wayfarers Chapel has been battered and had to be disassembled to save it this year.
Residents in the blackout zone feel isolated. And those who live nearby wonder whether their homes will be the next ones to lose utilities because of the landslide.
At this point, the ground is moving at an average of 9 to 12 inches per week.
The shutoffs are designed to reduce the risk that continual and accelerated land movements could spark a wildfire if power lines remained electrified, according to Edison officials.
The potential dangers were underscored by a small fire that began near Narcissa Drive in Portuguese Bend last week when a power line fell and ignited vegetation.
During the council’s special meeting, Edison officials said repairs and maintenance on lines in these areas have increased over the last year; however, their efforts have been “thwarted within sometimes days of making those repairs.”
The ongoing land movement has made it impossible for crews to keep up with the damage, said George Mundorf, Edison’s vice president of distribution operations. Shifting earth compounded by the area’s rough terrain is also complicating the crews’ ability to inspect areas fast enough to find problems before they happen, he said.
“Increasingly, [the] infrastructure is not accessible by cranes or trucks because of the road conditions and the conditions of the ground,” Mundorf said.
That means that a quick resolution to the crisis is unlikely.
Safety concerns for their crews and consumers prompted Edison to indefinitely shut off power for the Portuguese Bend neighborhood about a month after a gas shutoff. The city simultaneously issued an evacuation warning to the neighborhood.
Severe landslide damage on Dauntless Drive near the Portuguese Bend neighborhood where an evacuation warning has been issued due to electricity being cut on Sept. 1, 2024.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Higher up the hillside, just north of Portuguese Bend, power was disconnected from 34 properties for one to three weeks in the Seaview neighborhood, with 30 homes getting cut off indefinitely. Edison officials predicted that 41 other homes previously cut off from power would have it restored this week.
Authorities are also considering shutting off power to the Portuguese Bend Beach Club. Edison officials said they can’t definitively say whether power will be cut, with a decision based primarily on whether land movement conditions change. Officials warned that the community should be ready for a potential shutoff at the club.
“While [Edison] engineers are exploring solutions that may restore electric service, the unrelenting and accelerating movement over many months has no playbook,” Mundorf said. “That is why we cannot provide a time frame for power restoration in some cases.”
Living under such uncertain conditions, Seaview residents are having to turn to neighbors who have electricity for assistance.
“When we talk about our neighbors, we’re talking about people that are sharing refrigerators and helping each other move aquariums, cooking for each other and sharing laundry rooms for those of us that have power for our neighbors across the street that don’t,” Seaview resident Anne Cruz said during the council meeting.
City officials and residents wanted interim solutions from the utility such as neighborhood-scale generators or microgrids, but Edison said it wouldn’t be safe to operate because either method needs stable ground.
Southern California Edison sets up a community resource center in Portuguese Bend.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Early Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Rancho Palos Verdes after the risk of severe land movement disrupted utility services and prompted the evacuation warning.
The proclamation opens up state resources, including emergency personnel, equipment, services and financial assistance to the city as it responds to residences whose power has been shut off, city officials say.
What the governor’s declaration does not do is provide financial assistance to affected residents. Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank said he is sending a letter to the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services to request the emergency proclamation be expanded so financial assistance can be provided to residents.
In the meantime, the city approved an Edison retroactive permit request to install a temporary power pole at the Ladera Linda community park to provide electricity to Seaview.
It also extended a construction moratorium within the landslide area until October 2025 and adopted an emergency ordinance to help residents in the landslide complex to stabilize their homes and place temporary housing on the same site as their residence.
Following the governor’s declaration, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta issued a consumer alert Wednesday warning residents about the risk of price gouging on housing, gas, food and other essential supplies.
If consumers see the cost of an item that’s more than 10% higher than the price charged before the emergency declaration, Bonta said, they are encouraged to file a complaint online.
