Landslide ruins luxury homes
2005-06-02 13:50
Ben Fox
Laguna Beach - A landslide sent 17 multimillion-dollar houses crashing down a hill in Southern California as homeowners alarmed by the sound of walls and pipes coming apart ran for their lives in their pyjamas. Five people suffered minor injuries.
About 1 000 people in 350 other homes in the Blue Bird Canyon area were evacuated as a precaution early Wednesday.
In addition to the 17 houses destroyed - earlier reports said as many as 18 had been destroyed - 11 were damaged and a street was wrecked when the earth gave way around daybreak in this Orange County community about 81km southeast of Los Angeles.
Residents were alerted to the slide shortly before 07:00 by popping and cracking as power poles went down, homes fractured and trees disappeared. People grabbed their children, pets and belongings and fled as streets buckled around them.
"People were running down the hill like a bomb had gone off. I mean literally, they had their bed clothes on," said Robert Pompeo, 56, a retiree whose home is about 75m from the ridge where the most homes were lost.
Recent heavy rains
The cause of the disaster was under investigation. But Ed Harp of the United States Geological Survey said it was almost certainly related to the winter storms that drenched Southern California. A geologist contracted by the city agreed the cause was most likely rainfall, but said more tests were needed.
Laguna Beach has been dry since a trace of rainfall nearly a month ago, but before that, Southern California had its second-rainiest season on record. The region has gotten nearly 71cm of rain since last July, more than double the annual average.
The slide occurred about a mile from the beach on steep sandstone hills covered with large homes.
"The pipes started making funny noises and the toilet sounded like it was about to explode," said Carrie Joyce, one of those who fled. "I could see one house, huge... it had buckled, the retaining wall in the front of it was cracked. It just looked like the whole house was going."
Multi-storey homes came to rest at odd angles, some nearly intact and others splintered and trailing debris. One house, snapped in two.
At the top of the hill, the foundations of several homes were left exposed, their corners jutting out with nothing underneath to support them. One road ended abruptly, with the edge of the pavement hanging over a tangle of debris scattered downhill.
Two children were admitted to a hospital in good condition, and two others were treated at the scene for minor injuries, authorities said. A 71-year-old woman whose house was destroyed was taken to the hospital, suffering what appeared to be the effects of stress.
Laguna Beach, offering vistas of the Pacific from coastal bluffs, has some of Southern California's most desirable real estate.
- AP