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.

[SteelTrap]

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.

You're just messing with us, right? There are not really people who don't know that garage doors can be disconnected and yanked open by hand?

Please, tell me you are kidding...

Man, I hope that was a joke - otherwise I'd be really embarrased to admit I missed three days of work because the battery on my garage door opened died...back in the summer of aught 2...

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

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

No! It is an example of real stupidity on the part of building permit departments, builders and buyers. Insurance companies too, of course.

[BJungNan]

http://images.ibsys.com/2005/0601/4554903.jpg

It appears there is new construction in the area. Are the two houses in the right side of this picture new construction?

In Palos Verdes Estates, CA some years back, someone put in a new home on what was a relatively stable section of hill overlooking the ocean and not far from the cliffs.

Six months after the new house was completed, it was at the bottom of the cliff and that was enough to start a slow slide that soon wiped out a section of road and threatened 10 or more other homes.

New construction can be a cause of such a slide. The city seemed quick to blame it on rain.

[SoCal Pubbie]

I guess you've never seen a John Wayne movie. One need not have traveled on the Mayflower nor worn a funny black hat to be called a pilgrim (lower case).

[Sabatier]

Wonder if the people in the lower homes
will sue the people in the upper homes for
not having secured their foundations.

[Coldwater Creek]

Hope that you have a heavy duty storm cellar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[all4one]

Thanks for the ping. This is just heartbreaking for those families who have lost their homes. I hope that the families can recover and find places to live. I also pray that the rescue and utility workers stay safe.

I hope that the judgemental freepers on this thread haven't built their homes with wood or in an area where there could be a sinkhole....after all fires and sinkholes can happen anywhere. A families economic or social status should not be a reason to show distain to their tragedy. There have been more than a few shameful responses to this thread.

[Route101]

Sorry folks!...If your stupid enough to put a home on a slope in So. Cal. that the developer says could be prone to landslides...good luck!

[PhiKapMom]

We didn't even have a tornado touch down here in the month of May in the whole state -- set a record. We have a place to go -- that said there is an old Indian legend that the buffalo all gathered in a buffalo wallow at the river on the westside of Norman whenever there was bad weather and protects the town of Norman. Legend or not, Norman, knock on wood, has never been hit by a major tornado or much of anything until you get south of HWY 9 or out by the lake and even then they have been small tornadoes.

North of us about five miles, tornadoes from the southwest go into Moore right at the knee of the river -- three major ones since we have lived here BTW.

I will take my chances here with a tornado since Norman is home to the National Weather Center and Storms Prediction Center which means we get all the new equipment for warning, etc. There is plenty of advance notice as well for people to take action as the storms are tracked minute by minute.

[An Old Man]

"What happens to your ownership of "real estate" when the earth moves/slides/disappears?"

That's a very interesting question Lainie.

Real estate, especially in California is not usually located by reference to geographic coordinates. Instead survey markers or monuments are set out to control the location of smaller parcels cut from a larger one by a process known as "Subdivision". When an earthquake shifts the geographic location (Latitude and Longitude) of real property, two things tend to occur. As a result of the quake, land is often stretched on one side and compacted on the opposite boundary of the fault zone. Near the center of the zone land may retain substantially its original surveyed shape, but be located in a different geographic position. Those properties lying along the margins of the zone may be compressed or expanded in dimension.

In another scenario such as when a river which forms a property boundary, suddenly and violently alters its course, eroding the bank and thereby changing the size and shape of the property, procedures are in place to restore the boundary to its former position.

In the quake scenario, the property near the center of the zone will probably be resurveyed based upon the local control monuments and the owner will have substantially what he held before the quake but located in a different geographic location. In the Laguna Beach situation, the problem of boundary location in not exactly like the change river scenario and an entirely different solution will most likely be used to locate ownership lines in the future.

California state law provides a process known as “Reversion to Acreage” whereby the streets, alleys and lots shown upon a recorded Subdivision Map are abandoned and the land within the subdivision boundary is considered to be one large parcel, just like it was before the original subdivision took place.

A reversion to acreage is a very expensive and time-consuming process. Anyone undertaking this procedure will have to get the approval of the local government (the City of Laguna Beach), and preferably a single entity will need to hold title to all of the real estate.

It will be years before anyone will be able to put the pieces of this puzzle back together. There will be lots of bankruptcy filings followed by several banks repossessing some of the lots in this area. The city will probably not step forward to try and reconstruct the streets to their original alignment and grade. This one is a big mess and someone with deep pockets will have to come forward with a solution if the land is to be used for anything other than a city park.

I hope this provides a simplified answer to your question.

[ErnBatavia]

Coincidentally, the new owner of the house next door (weekend place for them) got out here from Laguna Beach yesterday. He's been on the phone with his wife quite a bit; their home is not in that area, but three of their friends are now homeless.

This neighbor is a contractor/engineer (builds homes in Laguna Beach) and from what he tells me, in the end our Federal tax bucks will be the deep pockets. The city will be sued for allowing rebuilding after the 1978 slides; the Army Corps of Engineers will isolate that area from future building, and from that point on the city will go after the state which'll go to the feds - all a nice slow process; but you and I will end up taking it in the hindquarters.

[LYSandra]

I guess I've always wondered why they keep building these homes perched on edges of area they know is subject to this or earthquakes. Guess it's like building basically in wilderness areas where fires happen. Just isn't logical.

[XR7]

That house? Many, many millions more. That property value is way below market value.

Right you are.
The tax assessor was wayyyyy off.
Wish my tax assessor was so sloppy.

[XR7]

It appears there is new construction in the area. Are the two houses in the right side of this picture new construction?

It appears so.
And, look what those homes are built upon.
It sure ain't bedrock.
Very foolish.

Jesus: But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. -- St. Matthew 7:26-27

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

Our tax dollars at work! I have NO sympathy whatsoever for these people.

[SoVaDPJ]

I was trying to remember that quote yesterday!

[eleni121]

The land property is probably worth more without the houses than with them. As long as owners are paying for repairs and rebuilding, not to mention the cost of govt. infrastructure repairs, the only to say is thank God no one was killed.

[Brad’s Gramma]

In the local paper today, they have a list of years these houses were built in. It ranged from 1959 to the early '60's....so yeppers, the land IS worth more.

What's a shame is, from what I heard yesterday is, some of these homes have been in the possession of individual FAMILIES for all this time. Passed down and down...

Yes indeed, it IS a GREAT thing no one was killed!!!

[Coldwater Creek]

My Husband is from the city. He loves to tell about when he was a little boy,on the day that Roosevelt died, there was a major fire at Tinker and a devastating tornado all in one afternoon. He was at home alone as his mother was at work at Tinker and he

had his little radio on and was hearing all of the news. He said it was the most frighting day of his life ever.

His brother lives out off of I40 and Choctaw and they are subject to wild fires a lot.