Joe Badame and his wife try to reserve laundry for sunny days.
They stagger their appliance use in the mornings, checking that a fan isn’t running at the same time as the coffeemaker. At night, Badame obsessively turns off lights. They both keep a constant eye on the app tracking their solar power capacity: Badame’s 91-year-old mother-in-law relies on an oxygen machine.
“We’re very careful, we keep everything off,” Badame, 65, said. “As long as it’s sunny … it typically gets us through the night.”
If their two 13.5-kilowatt batteries, charged by rooftop panels, begin to drop near 20% capacity, they trek down a gravel path to the corner of their front yard and switch on a massive generator.
The whole process has become the new normal for them and most of their neighbors, since public utility companies cut service to much of Rancho Palos Verdes’ landslide zone more than a year ago, following months of unprecedented earth movement — making the Portuguese Bend community one of the state’s largest and unlikeliest off-grid communities.
“We’ve got 100-plus homes in here that are acting like we’re out in the middle of the Mojave Desert,” said Kent Attridge, president of the Portuguese Bend Community Assn. “We’re doing what we have to do to stay in our homes.”
That’s been the overwhelming motivation for residents in this neighborhood, who have refused to relent against an erratic landslide that has presented challenge after challenge.
First it was widespread damage from accelerating land movement in early 2024: roads and homes splitting, cracking and dropping, some beyond repair. Then SoCalGas and Southern California Edison, in July and September that year, indefinitely cut their service to the area.
But with grit, determination and a bigger cash layout than most expected (and some could afford), the residents of about 120 homes have managed to stay put.
“The inconvenience is worth it,” Badame said, taking in the view of the sparkling Pacific, looking past his massive propane tank that sits just off their warped street. “We can’t afford a place like this anywhere else.”
While a testament to their resilience, “off-grid” is a designation that many hope they can soon shed, especially as the hours of available solar charging dwindle and storms return to threaten their precarious slopes.
“At this point now, it’s time to recharge the area,” Badame said. “Winter’s coming.”
Even before most people in this community relied on the sun for energy, they dreaded rain.
Increased rainfall leads to more groundwater, which in this corner of the Palos Verdes peninsula acts as fuel for a complex of slow-moving landslides that have plagued the area since the late 1950s and, in the last two years, brought escalating movement after two particularly wet seasons.
One key defense against this process: a network of de-watering wells, which pump out the water that lubricates the soil’s clay layers. But the pumps require electricity and residents want them hooked to the grid.
“We’re trying to operate these de-watering wells off of propane-powered generators … but it’s expensive,” Attridge, 78, said. “I’ve written letters, the city’s written letters, but it’s kind of fallen on deaf ears.”
Local officials say generators struggle to run for long durations and frequently break down, meaning many of the pumps have been operating on a limited schedule.
Restoring electricity, even just for the wells, is “the biggest thing that we could have to slow the movement,” said Gordon Leon, chair of the Abalone Cove Landslide Abatement District, an assessment-funded group focused on local landslide mitigation. Since last September when Edison cut electricity, the district has spent about $235,000 on generators, fuel and related maintenance, Leon said. That’s compared with about $36,000 spent in prior years for 24/7 grid-powered electricity.
But Edison officials have continued to say it cannot safely restore power because of ongoing movement, concerned about infrastructure damage that can increase chances “of system failure, fire ignition or other public safety hazards.”
Diane Castro, an SCE spokesperson, said the utility will consider re-energizing the area after “continued and sustained reduction in land movement” at a rate of 1 inch a week or less, which she called “pre-2023 rates.”
Many fear, however, that the electricity cuts themselves are making it more difficult to reach Edison’s threshold.
“If [the wells] were on 24/7, I think we’d be well under an inch now,” said Martha de la Torre, Badame’s wife.
The most active sections of the landslide — now mostly in the Portuguese Bend community — have fallen to around 2 inches a week, according to the city’s latest data. It’s still well above historical averages for the area, but significantly down from a peak of more than a foot a week during the summer of 2024. Other slopes in the area that had faced catastrophic movement have completely stilled.
Local officials have credited the de-watering wells with the continued declines in movement, probably aided by a relatively dry winter last year.
The city of Rancho Palos Verdes also operates a contingent of the off-grid de-watering wells and has been able to run them constantly, but it’s been a strain on their already strapped budget, said spokesperson Megan Barnes. In the last fiscal year, the city spent $1.7 million on generators and fuel to keep them pumping. And that’s on top of an estimated $150,000 for generators that power the neighborhood’s sewer system, Barnes said.
“We are hopeful that the movement can reach SCE’s threshold soon, and we continue to work with SCE … in an effort to bring residents back on the grid,” Barnes said in a statement. “These residents’ lives have been upended, and they continue to suffer significant quality of life impacts, from fuel costs, to noise, air quality, and environmental impacts from the generators — not to mention the high costs they have spent converting to alternatives.”
Edison has reconnected 121 customers who previously lost power in other areas also affected by the landslides, Castro said. A total of 174 remain without power, the vast majority in the Portuguese Bend community. About two dozen of those are red-tagged, deemed uninhabitable because of significant damage from the slides.
SoCalGas has not publicly shared a threshold it needs to establish before restoration, but in a statement said it is still “closely monitoring the land movement and its gas infrastructure.” Gas service has been restored to some neighborhoods near Portuguese Bend that also lost service last year.
California Water Service has maintained service in the landslide area. Most of its lines are now above ground with “swing joints” to help withstand movement, and a 24/7 crew is stationed in the area, according to spokesperson Yvonne Kingman.
But early storms that brought record November rains have many on edge.
“We don’t know what winter’s going to bring in terms of water entering the landslide,” Attridge said. “We want to keep pumping out more.”
While there is increased interest in California to move off the grid with solar panels and batteries — especially as utilities expand the use of power shutoffs to prevent fire starts — completely off-grid homes remain rare. Experts say most people moving toward energy independence remain connected to utilities for backup power.
While there are some fully off-grid dwellers, ranging from high-end desert oases and North Coast communes to the famous counterculture settlement of Imperial County’s “Slab City,” an off-grid suburb is one of a kind.
“I’ve not heard of a situation that’s being experienced in Palos Verdes,” said Scott Samuelsen, the founding director of the Advanced Power and Energy Program at UC Irvine. He compared the circumstances with those after a natural disaster, such as a hurricane that damages power lines or a major wildfire that destroys key transmission lines. But in those cases, he said utilities typically work nonstop to restore connectivity and often provide short-term backup power.
SCE has provided no direct financial support or backup power to the residents without electricity in the landslide zone.
Brad Heavner, executive director of the California Solar & Storage Assn., said the situation in Rancho Palos Verdes reminds him most of Puerto Rico, where officials are still struggling to provide dependable electricity more than eight years after Hurricane Maria wiped out much of the grid.
“A lot of [Puerto Rico] is still running on solar and storage only,” Heavner said.
In some rural locations, California’s major power providers have started installing a few permanent “remote grids,” providing almost personal power generation for hard-to-reach customers through solar panels, battery storage and a backup propane generator — a setup not so different from what most in Portuguese Bend have established.
Aimed at reducing wildfire risk, Pacific Gas & Electric has established 15 of these remote grids to serve 20 customers located “at the grid edge,” said Paul Doherty, a PG&E spokesperson. These customers still pay PG&E for their power, he said, but it is sourced from the local, independent infrastructure.
Most homeowners who spoke with The Times said they’ve spent anywhere from $40,000 to $150,000 on energy transitions: converting gas-powered appliances to electric, switching natural gas pipelines to propane, running for months on generators requiring expensive fuel, and installing solar panels and batteries.
“It’s hard financially … but it would be even more difficult to move,” Attridge said. “One of the misconceptions from mainstream media is we’re a bunch of rich people up here. … That’s not true. We’ve got a lot of elderly people — actually including myself — that are living on Social Security and pensions.”
With their de-watering wells, remote grids and jury-rigged modifications, residents in “The Bend” sometimes feel more like backcountry homesteaders.
“I’ve had to run down here in the middle of the night,” De La Torre, 68, yelled as the engine of their propane-powered generator roared to life, a sound more suitable for an airport tarmac than a suburban frontyard.
She hopes they will soon get some backup electricity, even if it’s just to power the wells and sewer system. But if not, they are now much better prepared than a year ago.
“It’s not the most convenient, but we could do it,” she said.
While some of their neighbors have left, those who remain say the struggle brought them closer together.
“We’re all learning how to live off the grid,” Leon said. He laughs about conversations that now revolve around “power management” strategies. “It’s exactly what you do with a spacecraft.”
Neighbors recommend helpful contractors and share tips for stretching their solar power. A lively group text coordinates daily volunteers who turn on and off the generators for the wells each morning and night.
In September, most gathered to mark the one-year anniversary of their life without grid power. Despite lingering frustration, some said it almost felt like a celebration. They drank wine and reminisced — and focused on a future that hopefully would be a little easier.
Sallie Reeves, who has dealt with some of the neighborhood’s worst movement, said her adult children want her to move. But now, that’s harder than ever to picture.
“It was a big neighborhood before — now it’s a family,” Reeves, 82, said. “The battle continues.”
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