California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for Rancho Palos Verdes, a Southern California city facing significant threats from a landslide that has endangered homes and forced the local utility provider to cut off electricity and gas to 245 residences due to hazardous conditions caused by broken pipes and power lines.
On Tuesday afternoon, Newsom issued the emergency declaration for this Los Angeles community after local leaders, who had been advocating for action over the weekend, reiterated their request for state intervention.
In his statement, Governor Newsom explained that Rancho Palos Verdes is situated on four out of five sub-slides that make up the Greater Portuguese Landslide Complex. He noted that the movement of the land in this area has “significantly accelerated following severe storms in 2023 and 2024.”
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has been working with city and county officials for nearly a year to support the landslide response, offering technical assistance, backing the local assistance center, facilitating a federal mitigation grant for groundwater work, and aiding in the initial damage assessments.
The governor’s decision came just hours before residents and local officials held a meeting to address the escalating crisis with utility representatives.
“We cannot predict how much the slide will accelerate in the coming weeks and months,” said Larry Chung, vice president of Southern California Edison (SCE), during Tuesday evening’s meeting.
Residents in the expanding landslide zone, which has spread over approximately 680 acres in the past year, have been advised to evacuate after SCE shut off power to 245 homes on Sunday and Monday. Many of these homes may remain without electricity and gas indefinitely.
Chung emphasized during the meeting that there is “no timeframe” for restoring power in the affected areas due to the land’s instability.
“The safety of the community members and crews remains our highest priority,” Chung added.
Back in January, Sallie Reeves shared with media that she first noticed small cracks in the walls and floors of her Rancho Palos Verdes home, where she has lived for four decades. However, by Tuesday, those cracks had expanded into a gaping fissure, damaging room after room as the ground beneath her home shifted by what she estimates is about 12 inches a week.
Like Reeves, many residents in this oceanfront community are grappling with a landslide crisis that is rendering their homes uninhabitable.
“This just kept getting worse, and we had animals coming in,” the 81-year-old Reeves told media, 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 added, noting that her husband is disabled.
Reeves explained that she and her husband had to move out of their master bedroom after severe roof damage caused a leak so intense it felt like “someone just turned a hose on our bed.”
Over the past four months, the situation has worsened, with parts of her ceiling collapsing and the gap between her outdoor deck and home widening to about 18 inches. The couple initially moved to their living room, but as the landslide made it uninhabitable, they relocated to a rear bedroom.
Rancho Palos Verdes is situated about 30 miles south of Los Angeles.
“There is no playbook for an emergency like this one,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, who represents the area, during a news conference on 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 announced that the county has committed $5 million to respond to the disaster.
Officials reported that the shifting land has caused water and gas pipes to leak, leading to at least two homes being red-tagged as uninhabitable.
“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 parts of the city, but residents like Reeves are reluctant to leave 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 bed. I’m his 24-hour care.”
Reeves mentioned that she is working with a contractor to lift her home and build a steel foundation on cribbing, with the expectation that these repairs will come out of her own pocket.
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“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.”
