Rancho Palos Verdes residents urge Trump, FEMA to help with landslide at president’s golf club
A smattering of Rancho Palos Verdes residents rallied outside of the Trump National Golf Course on Friday evening, Jan. 24, to urge its namesake and the newly sworn-in U.S. president and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide much-needed aid as the city deals with unprecedented land movement that has upended the quality of life for many people over the last two years.
President Donald Trump visited los Angeles County of Friday afternoon to tour the Pacific Palisades, which has been decimated by a wildfire. But he did not make a return trip to his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course, where he has been a regular visitor in the past.
Trump’s visit and the subsequent protest at his golf course came a week after RPV received another denial of aid from FEMA. So far, FEMA has denied RPV $32 million in public assistance, with around $6 million more pending, according to city officials, because the federal agency considers the disaster a pre-existing condition.
Two geologic hazard abatement districts, the Abalone Cove and Klondike Canyon landslide hazard abatement districts, requested assistance as well, but were also denied.
A few residents came out on Friday to get their voices heard, with signs saying “Largest Landslide Disaster in America” and “SOS Save Our Homes,” as a message for the president across the street from Trump National Golf Club.
Resident Nikki Noushkam said she would tell the president, if the opportunity arose, that FEMA “needs to be reformed.”
“I would say we need just as much help as others that have been impacted by natural disasters,” Noushkam said.
Resident Eva Abuja agreed.
“They’re saying it’s a pre-existing condition,” Abuja said of FEMA. “There’s always pre-existing. Earthquake zones, fire zones, tornado zones, they all get help, but landslide we have had zero help.”
While the landslide areas is historic in nature, experts have said, heavy rains the last two winter seasons accelerated the movement.
Trump, for his part, floated the possibililty of reforming or eradicating FEMA on Friday. While turing hurricane-ravaged North Carolina earlier Friday, the president said that instead of having federal financial assistance flow through that agency, Washington could provide money directly to the states.
“FEMA has been a very big disappointment,” Trump said. “It’s very bureaucratic. And it’s very slow.”
As for RPV, the city and the abatement districts are expected to appeal FEMA’s denials.
Early last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties because of damage wrought by heavy rains, snowfall and winds.
When then presidential candidate Trump visited his Rancho Palos Verdes golf course in September for a press conference, he called California a “mess” and was been critical of the governor’s response to the land movement issue.
Then RPV Mayor John Cruikshank, a Republican, stood with Trump at the golf club that day.
Cruikshank, in an interview after meeting Trump, said he told the future president that the city needs help from the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA.
“If I was president,” Cruikshank said Trump told him, “you would be getting the help you need.”
Many on RPV have seen their lives upended because of the land movement.
Heavy rain the winters of 2022 and 2023 caused the Greater Portuguese Bend Landslide Complex to move at an unprecedented rate, damaging houses, forcing power and gas services to be shut off, nearly destroying historic landmarks and causing extensive damage to the heavily traveled Palos Verdes Drive South.
The city installed dewatering wells last year, which, along with a dry winter, have helped slow the land movement in most of the landslide area.
While that has helped, many residents are still suffering.
“We still have over 200 homes without power, gas, a bunch of homes that are severely damaged and unlivable, including ours,” said Noushkam, who lives in the Klondike Canyon Landslide Abatement District, “and we have been homeless for months now and no help and totally forgotten.”
.Albuja, who also lives in KCLAD, added they have had no help from the tax assessor’s office either.
“They’ve been telling us they’re going to help us with assessments; they have not,” Albuja said. “We have to pay our full bill, or we get penalized for delinquent charges. We’re paying mortgages, we’re paying insurance. We’re paying for other places to live at. It’s a huge burden to everybody.
“People are going to friends’ houses to take showers, to cook,” she added. “They sleep in the dark right now. They’re very cold because the weather is cold now. We still have had no assistance from the state or the federal and you think in this type of crisis, at least they would lower our tax assessor payment.”