Important Takeaways:
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Tuesday in the city of Rancho Palos Verdes as severe land shift in the area is threatening the community and disrupting power lines.
- More than 200 homes in the city, around 30 miles south of Los Angeles, had their power cut Monday as a long-running ground shift close to them is threatening utility lines.
- “The city is located on four out of five sub-slides that comprise the Greater Portuguese Landslide Complex,” the governor’s office said. “Land movement at part of the Complex has significantly accelerated following severe storms in 2023 and 2024.”
- “This is unprecedented,” Rancho Palos Verdes City Council member Barbara Ferraro said Sunday. “No one knows really, in a way, what to do.”
- Southern California Edison cut off electricity Sunday to 140 homes in the Portuguese Bend community, an outage that it says is indefinite because the shifting ground threatens utility poles and raises the risk of fires in the city.
- Officials say the land there has been shifting slowly for decades, but the problem is worse than it used to be. “The movement has accelerated dramatically over the last 12 months, where some areas are moving up to 10 inches a week,” said City Council member David Bradley. “You can almost see the ground move.”
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