Residents of landslide-stricken city in California to get financial help

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Louise Thomas

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As much as $10,000 will be distributed to some residents of a peninsula on the edge of Los Angeles where worsening landslides have damaged homes and led to utility shutoffs.

The Rancho Palos Verdes City Council on Tuesday allocated $2.8 million — more than half of a $5 million grant from LA County — for direct relief to families in the Portuguese Bend neighborhood facing landslide damage or a loss of power and gas services, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“These emergency grants will deliver long-overdue immediate assistance to those whose lives have been upended by land movement and utility shutoffs, helping them cover essential costs like home repairs and temporary housing,” Mayor John Cruikshank said in a statement.

The money will go to properties most directly affected by the land movement and the shutoffs, which the Times estimated to be about 280 homes in Rancho Palos Verdes. But many residents have said they are facing costs closer to $100,000 after the land shifted, leaving them scrambling to fortify foundations, switch to off-grid solar energy and convert natural gas lines to propane.

The landslides are the latest catastrophe in California, already burdened by worsening wildfires and extreme weather that has swung from heat waves to torrential rains that have caused flooding and mudslides in the past year.

In Rancho Palos Verdes, entire homes have collapsed or been torn apart. Walls have shifted and large fissures have appeared on the ground. Evacuation warnings are in effect, and swaths of the community have had their power and gas turned off. Others are contending with temporary water shutdowns to fix sewer lines.

Gov. Gavin Newsom last month declared a state of emergency.

The Times reported the funds are not extended to residents in Rolling Hills, the nearby city where about 50 residents also have lost utility services because of land movement in a few neighborhoods.