LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. -A landslide sent 18 multimillion-dollar houses crashing down a hill in Southern California early yesterday as homeowners alarmed by the sound of walls and pipes coming apart ran for their lives in their nightclothes. At least four people suffered minor injuries.
About 1,000 people in 350 other homes in the Blue Bird Canyon area were evacuated as a precaution.
In addition to the houses destroyed, several homes were damaged and a street was wrecked when the earth gave way around daybreak in this Orange County community about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
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 we call it `the mausoleum
' 5
000 square feet or more. It had buckled
the retaining wall in the front of it was cracked. It just looked like the whole house was going.
Residents were alerted to the slide shortly before 7 a.m. 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 75 yards from the ridge where the most homes were lost.
The cause of the disaster was under investigation, but Ed Harp of the U.S. Geological Survey said it was almost certainly related to the winter storms that drenched Southern California.
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 28 inches 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.
Jill Lockhart, 35, fled with her sons, ages 2 and 4, after being awakened by the noise. You could hear the homes breaking. You could hear the cracking wood
she said.
She said a teenage neighbor grabbed one of her boys as she ran. They abandoned Flamingo Road and scrambled down the shrub-and dirt-covered hillside as the road began to buckle and plunged beneath their feet.
Lockhart's two-story home was destroyed, she said.
We had to run for our lives
she said. I don't know how everyone got out alive.
Multistory homes came to rest at odd angles, some nearly intact and others splintered and trailing debris. One house, snapped in two, had an American flag fluttering from a balcony.
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.
Fifteen to 18 homes were believed to be total losses, police Capt. Danelle Adams said. About 20 others were very tenuous
she said.
There is still movement so I think that we are still in a danger zone
