As the community of Rancho Palos Verdes continues to face landslide threats, hundreds of households in the Southern California city are without power.

Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Monday as authorities cut off power to 245 homes in the coastal community, about 25 miles south of Los Angeles, due to increasing earth movements. The region’s power provider, Southern California Edison, cut off power to 140 homes on Sunday and another 105 homes on Monday, citing the risk of fires.

The city has long struggled with landslides, but a historic storm in February exacerbated and accelerated the movements, causing displacement of up to 12 inches per week. Rancho Palos Verdes is currently grappling with roads buckling, buildings collapsing and cracking, and hundreds of families forced to evacuate their homes, Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn said at a news conference Monday.

“I think we’re all learning that there’s no playbook for an emergency like this,” Hahn said. “What we do know is that a lot of families are struggling, suffering and very afraid of what’s happening. They see their homes – they see their streets crumbling around them.”

The supervisor urged the governor to visit the region, adding, “This is bigger than Rancho Palos Verdes. This land movement is so gigantic and so damaging that one city or one homeowners organization should not bear this burden alone.”

She said that while this has been an issue for decades, the movement is now “accelerating beyond what any of us could have predicted.”

Southern California Edison notified Rancho Palos Verdes that due to the ongoing movement, power would be cut off to several homes because of the risk of fire.

Larry Chung, vice president of customer loyalty at SoCal Edison, said the earth movement had “created a situation so dangerous that we have had to make the difficult decision to shut off power indefinitely.” Residents in the affected neighborhood were already expecting gas shutoffs in July.

Chung called the current emergency “unprecedented” and said, “We have not only an obligation to serve, but an even greater obligation to keep our community safe.”

City officials said they are in the process of “seeking hotels and other accommodations that can offer discounted rates to residents affected by the power outage.”

The latest power outage will affect the Seaview neighborhood, designed by architect Paul Williams in 1960.

Earlier this year, landslides in the region led to the demolition of Wayfarers Chapel, Frank Lloyd Wright Jr.’s famous glass sanctuary. The chapel’s leaders dismantled it before it was destroyed by earth movements, hoping to one day move it to a more stable location.

Last year, homes on the hillsides of Los Angeles’ affluent Rolling Hills Estates neighborhood collapsed and cracked due to similar rock shifts, prompting hasty evacuations.