SCE Starting Long Burial Process For Malibu Power Lines

Power lines is Malibu are moving underground.

Southern California Edison yesterday dug six huge holes in the pavement on PCH near Big Rock … and moved at quick speed to install underground vaults and replace the highway. 

The vaults will eventually house underground wire connections and transformers.

Company spokesman Tom Eisenhauer tells KBUU … undergrounding is happening quickly along the highway.

71079 SCE REPAVE

“I know that we are coordinating with Caltrans. to make sure to make sure because we know that they have a pavement rehabilitation plan and our schedule for underground along the PCH shows that we will complete our underground before they begin their repaving.,”

SCE is starting in the fire zone and then working west … they expect to have the distribution power lines underground as far west as Malibu pier by this summer.

The eastern power lines are called the Nicholas Circuit … it’s one of nine circuits that SCE has designated for chunks of the Malibu power system.   The troublesome Cuthbert Circuit at Paradise Cove and Point Dume … with one of the highest failure rates in the SCE system … is due for under grounding ear;y in the process … Eisenhauer said.

But he is not sure about the Gallahad Circuit, form Zuma Beach west.   Portions of those lines have been hardened with thicker wooden poles and insulated overhead lines, an investment that may preclude burial, according to some earlier SCE statements.

Then … there is the question of thick overhead cables owned by Charter, Frontier, Crown Castle and other communications companies.

Right now .. plans are firmed up only to put the SCE distribution lines underground.   Not the service drops, and not the communications lines, which are not owned or controlled by SCE.  Under decisions made decades ago by the CPUC, the power company sold parts of the power poles to the comm companies. 

71080 TRENCHES 

“We are coordinating with utilities that jointly owned the poles along the PCH. And although we can’t force the utilities to make sure these polls go underground, because they are joint oh owners. We have given them the opportunity to jointly trench with us, so that will happen all at the same time.”

SCE also has to come up with a plan for its service lines … the twisted cables that lead from transformers out to every single electric meter via aerial drops to each house.

Eisenhauer says … plans for the home delivery drop wires are … literally .. up in the air. 

71081 SERVICE DROPS 

“There are still some changes and some designs that will determine the feasibility of under grounding the service drops. 

“We’re going to need hundreds of easements from customers on these circuits.

“So we are seeking community buy-in there, and that’s just still part of the planning on those circuits.”

Right now … SCE is concentrating on getting those hundreds of legal agreements from property owners along PCH … to let the power company install the power lines in the narrow dry land between the highway and the cliff down to the waterfront.

And we mighty observe that beachfront homeowners may also want to put their septic systems in the same stip of land.

On top of that … some beachfront landowners are out of the country … or hiding behind ownership companies that makes tracking them down very difficult.

Another House Collapses Above The Cliff That Is Threatening PCH Near Sunset Blvd

Another house has collapsed just above Pacific Coast Highway near the Getty Villa Museum.

This house was damaged in the fire… but before that … it had been damaged in the long running Tramonto landslide.

Yesterday … the wreckage slid further down the steep hillside … landing on top of a house that split in half earlier this year.

Both houses have come to rest of Castellemar Drive … a small hillside street that’s been sliding towards Pacific Coast Highway for decades.

All of this is putting additional pressure … it would appear … on the cliffside just above Pacific Coast Highway. 

The city of Los Angeles and Caltrans have been grappling with this slow moving disaster … which last year closed one of the two lanes heading towards Malibu for months. 

The Tramonto landslide has been taking out houses … and threatening PCH … for decades. 

The 100 year old concrete retaining walls just above the highway are buckling in several areas … between Sunset Boulevard and Porto Marina Way.

The temporary Caltrans solution has been to move the PCH highway lanes out away from the cliff … but they have run out of room for that temporary fix.

In past landslides like this … Caltrans has told KBUU that it cannot move up the hill onto private property to protect the state road.

The solution so far has been … let it slide. 

Man Killed In Crash At Lincoln Offramp, Amid Ocean Of Caltrans Barricades

A 86 year old man was killed in a fiery crash at the end of the Santa Monica Freeway on Monday.

The CHP says the man’s car hit the side of the freeway at the Lincoln Boulevard offramp … where traffic has been funneled down to one lane by Caltrnas. 

The car was a BMW … it flipped onto its roof and caught fire .

The coroner identified its driver as 86-year-old Ronald Kramer.  No hometown was listed.

The freeway offramp has been made more tangled by the decision by Caltrans to block one westbound lane on the freeway … due to the Paiisades Fire road closure more than a mile beyond.

Caltrans is apparently using snarled traffic at the interchange as a means to discourage traffic on the PCH.

There is no indication … however … if that confusion led to the driver’s death. 

At Point Dume School, Parents Flocking To Enroll Kids In Summer School 

Enrollment is up … way up … at the elementary school on Point Dume.

Enrollment has gone up about 15 percent this year … from 190 to 265 students at Malibu Elementary school. 

Principal Chris Hertz says the addition of prekindergarten classes has filled up the pipeline of kids into the grade 1 to 6 programs. 

71076 PRE-K CHRIS HERTZ. 

“We can actually now compete with private schools and get families to bring their-year-olds to us. 

“It truly is joy at our school. It’s the most beautiful part of the whole school.”

But the principal says his staff continues to grapple with the highest rate of student absences in the district.

He says the remote location of the school … plus road closures … mean that parents have to take their kids out for a while day to go to a doctors appointment  in the city.

71077 ABSENTEES

“so what am I saying to parents you missed a lot of school stop the elective absences doctor appointments after school. Let’s get your kids here..”

And the Malibu Elementary principal told the school board last night … parents and kids are responding.

The loss of 19 instructional days thus year … for fires floods and road closures … has resulted in huge enrollment of kids in summer school at Malibu Elementary.

71078 SUMMER SCHOOL.

“We now have universal summer school at our school. 

“Yesterday we picked out the classrooms for 114 children in summer school. “That is a 1005% increase from last year, when we had seven kids between two schools sign up … so few that we didn’t have summer school … remember that?, that’s two years that was two years in a row that we didn’t have it of interest, but the interest is huge this year.”

Hertz spoke at last night’s Santa Monica school board meeting … the first school board meeting in Malibu in months. 

And he said the addition of a Starlink satellite terminal has made it possible for the school to communicate via phone during power outages for the first time.

Six years ago … volunteers had installed a microwave link at Malibu Elementary and high schools … to perform the same function.

But officials at the school district headquarters in Santa Monica never hooked into the system …meaning school had to be cancelled whenever SCE threatened to turn off the power. 

Whose Fault? Malibu Coastal Fault Likely Source of Quake Swarm

Three Sundays in a row … Malibu has been hit by some pretty good earthquakes.

All epicenters up on Encioncal Canyon road … 

Reporter Lance Orozco at KCLU examines the sequence:  [BEGIN KCLU REPORT:]

For three weeks in a row, a swarm of small quakes has rattled parts of Ventura and Los Angeles Counties. 

Last Sunday’s quake had a magnitude 3.9. On March 9, it was a 4.1. And, on March 2 it was a 3.9. All three quakes were accompanied by a string of smaller temblors.

So, what’s the story behind the seismic activity? A seismologist thinks a fault in the Malibu area may be the source of the activity.

The epicenters of the quakes have been occurring in the same general area, about eight miles south of Thousand Oaks, or about six miles northwest of Malibu.

“They’re on the Malibu Coast Fault. As far as any fault that’s close by, and would project down to that depth, it’s probably the Malibu Coast Fault,” said Ralph Archuleta, a seismologist who’s spent decades doing earthquake-related research at UC Santa Barbara.

“The Malibu Coast Fault sort of runs parallel to the coast of Malibu. But, right in that area (where the epicenters have been occurring) is where it turns, and then starts going in a more southerly direction, and then goes out into the channel…sort of like a bend in the fault is where these things are occurring,” said the seismologist.

Archuleta added that the fault doesn’t have a history of major earthquakes but is capable of having one. “It’s not very active. I don’t recall any major earthquake like a magnitude 6 or greater having occurred on that fault. But, it’s capable of producing a 6, a 6.5 quake.”

The flurry of quakes in the region raises questions about what they mean. While they could be a precursor of something bigger, Archuleta said it’s statistically unlikely.

“If you have an earthquake, you have a 5% chance that there will be another earthquake at least one magnitude unit larger within 24 hours or 48 hours. It’s like one in 20,” said Archuleta.

Archuleta thinks the quakes are more likely a sign of pressure in a bend in the Malibu Coast Fault. “This is a place where there’s a bend in the fault, maybe it’s under a little bit more stress and so it’s releasing some of that stress right now,” said Archuleta.

”As a seismologist, any time you start to see a cluster of earthquakes, you start to think, is this going to be a hypocenter for a larger earthquake? But, a lot of times they just die off. Nothing happens.”

Researchers feel the recent quakes emphasize the need to be prepared for the potential for a major quake, and not just where the recent temblors have been focused. The Tri-Counties has several faults, including a series in the Santa Barbara Channel.

For instance, there’s one that stretches from downtown Ventura to the Santa Barbara and Goleta areas. It’s known as the Ventura-Pitas Fault. Researchers have said it has the potential to generate a magnitude 7 quake.

The recent string of temblors between the Thousand Oaks and Malibu areas didn’t cause any injuries or significant damage. But, they may be providing an important wake-up call for the region to be prepared for when something much larger will occur.

Coming Soon: More Malibu Fire Rebuild Policy Decisions

Public meetings are coming at us fast and furious.

Yesterday afternoon … the Malibu city council held a policy writing roundtable at City Hall.

We’ll have full coverage of that meeting … Friday.