"They are watching the streets and their houses crumble": The exclusive California town threatened by landslides

“If you have animals, children or need more time to evacuate, now is the time to leave.”

This is how the mayor’s office notified the residents of Palos Verdes Ranchan exclusive city in Los Angeles County, on August 31.

In the statement shared on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, municipal authorities clarified the difference between a warning and an evacuation order, and concluded: “Remember that you do not have to wait to be evacuated. If you feel unsafe, LEAVE.”

The inhabitants of the city, located about 40 kilometers south of downtown Los Angeles and made up mostly of mansions built on cliffs Overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island, they have long been threatened by unstable terrain.

But the situation has worsened in recent months, partly due to the Unusually heavy rains during the last two winters and springs.

“The landslide has accelerated dramatically in the past 12 months, with areas where is moving up to 25 centimeters a week“Councilman David Bradley told CNN.

“You can almost see the ground moving.”

As a result, there have been recorded sinkholes on the road that crosses the peninsula, Sinkholes in houses and gardens and even fires. The iconic Wayfarers Chapel, designed by Lloyd Wright, the son of the very famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was also forced to close its doors.

And this Tuesday, in response to repeated calls from municipal authorities, California Governor Gavin Newson declared a state of emergency for the area.

Last week, a light pole that fell due to landslides caused burn a part of the forest surrounding one of the most exclusive communities, Portuguese Bend, although the fire was quickly extinguished.

Faced with this, and while some of the 42,000 inhabitants insist on staying in their multi-million dollar homes, several public service companies have already begun to take measures to avoid other possible disasters.

Thus, on Sunday the Southern California Edison company interrupted the electricity supply to 140 homes from the site, and on Monday sent a notice to another 105, warning that more outages were possible.

“Earth movement in the Portuguese Bend community has created a situation so dangerous that we have made the very difficult decision to disconnect power indefinitely “to prevent a wildfire from starting,” said Larry Chung, a spokesman for the power company.

The services of Gas and water have also been interrupted. indefinitely.

Some residents are complaining about the short notice given.

“They are giving us less time than the gas company,” Mike Hong told the newspaper. Los Angeles Times on Saturday, saying the warning reached them just an hour before the outage.

“Please don’t abandon us.”

Two weeks ago, the City Council voted to move ahead with a pilot plan that includes drilling wells in the area of ​​the largest slide to pump out the groundwater that is causing it, while continuing to study deeper earth movements.

“This is much bigger than just a municipal issue, and without the help of our partners at the county, state and federal levels, we will not be able to come up with real solutions to slow the landslide,” said Councilmember Bradley.

“It is an acceleration [del desprendimiento de tierra] what’s up beyond what any of us could have foreseen“Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors member Janice Hahn acknowledged at a news conference Sunday.

The county government agency official explained that they reserved US$5 million to help in cases of disasters like these, but it is not enough.

“There needs to be a bigger response from the state” of California, he added. “Residents are seeing their homes and the streets around them crumble.”

The emergency declaration issued Tuesday by Governor Newson will facilitate, in addition to technical assistance, the allocation of additional funds to mitigate and prevent damage.

Evacuation is not mandatory at the moment, although authorities are encouraging residents to do so.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff told reporters that drones will be used to monitor the situation.

Today, there are many residents who refuse to leave their homes behind.

“They can send us all the warnings you want“We’re not going away,” Tom Keefer told the newspaper. The New York Times.

The Experts have been warning for decades about the risks of incessant urbanization of the peninsula, at least since the expansion of Crenshaw Boulevard in 1956 reactivated a system of ancient underground landslides.

Today is one of the largest active landslides in the United Stateswhich has caused homes in the area to move dozens of meters in recent years, and has caused the municipality to spend around US$1 million each year to repair the road.

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