No gas. No power. No sewer system. Evacuation warnings in place. But many Ranchos Palos Verdes residents at last night’s council meeting said they’re not leaving.
“We’re staying in our homes. We’re not leaving,” a resident said. “This community is not leaving.”
Residents in the Portuguese Bend neighborhood are furious about the handling of the area’s ongoing landslide, which led to a sudden power shutoff over the weekend and has now prompted evacuation warnings from Southern California Edison, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and city inspectors.
“I had neighbors calling me crying saying, ‘I don’t know what i”m gonna do,’” one speaker said at the council meeting. “And that’s because you guys didn’t have any backup systems for your sewers. That’s absolutely incompetence.”
Another resident who’s lived in the area for 26 years told KNX News’ Nataly Tavidian the biggest frustration is the unknown.
“Not knowing from day to day what’s next, you know, it’s a stress. It just kind of wears you down,” she said. “And then you have to go to work, you have to do all your stuff.”
Governor Newsom finally agreed yesterday to declare a state of emergency for the area, but he still has not responded to repeated requests to visit the area and talk to those who are suffering.
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L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn has estimated that addressing the landslide may cost $1 billion and said "there's no playbook for an emergency like this one."
Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank says they're grateful the governor declared a state of emergency, but the assistance that comes with it can only go to a government agency like the city of Rancho Palos Verdes or their landslide abatement districts, not individual homeowners or residents.
When asked if the city will now have the means to offset costs incurred by residents as a result of the power being shut off, he said, "I would say, I don't know. I mean, I think the problem is that the governor's response was very nuanced."
The goal now, Mayor Cruikshank says, is to crunch the numbers and hopefully get federal help for individual residents, which is an avenue made available now that the governor declared the state of emergency, allowing the city to take their request to the federal level.
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