Residents in small California retirement town left devastated as landslides keep getting worse: ‘There’s been literally no help’

Residents of a small California town home to retirees are shocked by increasingly severe landslides.

Homeowners in Rancho Palos Verdes, south of Los Angeles — often called America’s wealthiest retirement city — are facing one battle after another as land deals have left areas virtually uninhabitable.

Tom Keefer and his wife Cindy have been struggling to survive, having been without power for over a month. This has presented them with a new challenge: struggling to properly store food and relying on ice and propane from a local gas station to stay alive.

“We’re struggling. It’s not only emotionally stressful, it’s financially stressful,” Keefer, 67, said. LA Times.

Keefer said the city is not providing financial assistance to the community despite all the hardships brought about by the devastating landslides.

“The sad thing is there has literally been no help, it’s been extraordinary. There has been no funding. … It’s only by helping each other that we make progress,” he told the outlet.

Keefer and his neighbors are dealing with endless road closures, damaged homes, no power and trying to find a way to safely store food.

In addition to having to fend for themselves and stay safe during an ongoing disaster, residents also feel anxious and angry about the lack of aid.

In July, residents like Keefer lost their gas service, and in early September the city cut off power to homeowners who had been warned to evacuate because of the excavation movement.

Concerns about infrastructure breaks and possible wildfires have forced utility companies to cut off access as it is no longer safe to deliver electricity and gas to parts of the city.

Additionally, residents, including Keefer, have lost access to internet and landlines after Cox Communications disconnected them in August.

Sallie Reeves, 81, is also struggling to stay above water, but hopes it will draw more attention to saving Los Angeles County as it continues to slide toward the ocean.

“It’s scary because it’s bigger than anyone could have imagined,” Reeves told the LA Times.

Reeves and her husband have lived on their Portuguese Bend estate for more than forty years.

Meanwhile, Keefer’s wife Cindy, 63, is concerned about future weather conditions in the already dire situation.

Do you know how everyone is afraid of the first rain?

“Nothing is being done to prevent a major disaster. … We don’t want pity, we want work done up there — and we want it done now,” she said.

At the beginning of August, 135 households had their gas connections disconnected, after which the homeowners’ electricity and water supplies were cut off on 1 September.

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Rancho Palos Verdes this month following the closures, but did not elaborate on financial assistance or the reason behind the severe damage.

Meanwhile, utilities have indicated that more power shutoffs could occur soon and have not indicated when they will be restored during the “liquid situation,” a spokesperson for Southern California Edison (SoCal Edison) said.

The coastal community has been struggling with landslides since torrential rains hit the area last spring.

Dozens of homes were destroyed by landslides last July, and the storms that hit California in February ravaged the area with flooding, causing “significant landslides” under homes that survived the storm.

SoCal Edison decided to shut off the water supply after a fire was sparked in late August by a downed power line and 10,000 gallons of sewage spilled from a ruptured tank on Palos Verdes Drive South.

“At this point, the landslide has created such a dangerous situation that we have had to make the difficult decision to shut off power indefinitely,” spokesman David Eisenhauer said earlier.

“We never want to have to turn off the power unless it’s absolutely necessary. In this case, we absolutely have to.

“We have an obligation that goes beyond supplying electricity, and that obligation is safety.”

But resident Mike Hong said his neighbors were given only an hour’s notice that the plug would be pulled.

“They even give us less time than the gas company,” he told the LA Times.

‘Don’t abandon us. Where is the humanity in all this?’

More than a quarter of the city’s residents are over 65 and some have been ordered to pack their bags.

The city of 42,000 has a median income of $166,747 and was named the nation’s wealthiest city for retirees in a recent CNBC survey.

But residents say the city’s rich reputation means it is being ignored by politicians, putting vulnerable residents at greater risk.

“Everyone has to assume that everyone who lives in Rancho Palos Verdes is infinitely wealthy, but that’s not the case, especially not for me,” Craig Cadwallader said. CBS News.

“So I literally don’t know where I’m going.”

County Supervisor Janice Hahn said she had pledged an additional $5 million in county funds to help with the disaster and reiterated her demands that Gov. Newsom intervene.

“There is no playbook for an emergency like this,” she told a news conference.

“We’re sparing no expense. This is bigger than Rancho Palos Verdes. This land movement is so massive and so damaging that one city should not have to bear the burden alone.

“You would think we would have responded differently if it had been an earthquake, a fire or a flash flood,” Halm said.