Laguna Beach Landslide Sends Homes Crashing

AP ^ | June 1, 2005

[Howlin]

LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. - A landslide sent at least five expensive homes crashing down a hill Wednesday and may have damaged many others.

Fire department personnel had no estimate of the damage, and there was no immediate word on whether there were any injuries.

Television helicopter footage showed smashed homes on heavily built-up Flamingo Road. The earth was still moving beneath the homes. Some fell nearly intact, while others were ripped apart and left trails of debris.

The steep coastal area has had slide problems before and several homes were "red-tagged" as uninhabitable in February, during the second rainiest season on record in Southern California.

Laguna Beach is about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

[Howlin]

Ping!

[steveo]

Expensive loss. Imagine not being able to rebuild your house because the land isn't there anymore!

[Mr. Mojo]

at least five expensive homes

Nine now, according to FOX News.

...and there could be a lot more to come.

[ctlpdad]

Dirt is a fluid. If you buid a house on a non-level fluid, this is exactly what you would expect, unless you are rich enough to uphold the law of gravity.

[Howlin]

It looks really bad. Really.

[Howlin]

I guess this falls under the category of your basic act of God, eh?

[kingu]

Channel 11: Are you honoring the evacuation order?

Caller: No, well, not yet - the only reason why I'm still here is with the power out, I can't open my garage door.

(sigh)

[Mikey_1962]

Compounded by poor site choice.

[ctlpdad]

Basic act of gravity.

[maggief]

[Sloth]

[theDentist]

... and the insurance companies will be looking for any minute reason not to pay off.

[KarlInOhio]

Caller: No, well, not yet - the only reason why I'm still here is with the power out, I can't open my garage door.

Phone: beep, beep

Caller: Hold on, I have another call on the line. The caller ID says it's from Mr. Darwin.

[AgThorn]

Laguna Beach Homes Destroyed in Slide

By Don Kelsen
Times Staff Writer

June 1, 2005, 11:53 AM EDT

Homes slid down a hill in Laguna Beach shortly after dawn this morning, with live television showing images of large homes dangling into the air, foundations exposed by the moving earth.

There were reports of minor injuries. An eyewitness said at least 15 homes appeared to be totally destroyed.

The slide is in the area of Bluebird Canyon where a huge slide consumed a neighborhood on Oct. 1, 1978. A total of 24 families lost homes in that slide, and all but about six rebuilt there.

An hour after today's slide was reported, land was still moving along Flamingo Road. Television viewers saw a large tree fall over the yawning chasm. Lifeguards were among the first to respond, along with and police and firefighters

Heavy rains in the winter of 1977-78 slowly percolated down inside the hillside, making a subterranean grease slick of what had been a 1 1/2-inch thick layer of clay. About 3 1/2 acres of earth 50 feet thick slid in one massive chunk, which was compared to the top half of a layer cake slipping on the frosting below.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

[Black Tooth]

Most all these homes were already red taged, and empty...

[PhiKapMom]

All the property they built on the edge in SoCal is an accident waiting to happen. A lot of places were built on fill dirt and soil becomes unstable and erodes over time when it rains -- view is great when everything is dry and the land is hard as a rock -- try digging a hole when there has been no rain. Get rain and you sink in the dirt.

Malibu has had this problem for years along with other areas. At the old Norton AFB housing office was a huge picture of a huge rock in the center of the street in Highland after a huge slide sent rocks, mud tumbling all the way from the mountains into Highland. They had warnings in their housing books about areas where rock/mud slides could happen with rain. One look at that picture and we went to Upper Yucaipa where the danger was small instead of anywhere in N. San Bernardino.

[Howlin]

Something about the gene pool comes to mind. :-)

[Howlin]

Thanks for the pictures!