Laguna Beach, Calif. – A landslide sent 17 multimillion-dollar houses crashing down a hill in Southern California early Wednesday as homeowners alarmed by the sound of walls and pipes coming apart ran for their lives in their pajamas.
Five 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 17 houses destroyed, 11 were damaged and a street was wrecked when the earth gave way at daybreak in this Orange County community about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
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. Ed Harp of the U.S. 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 28 inches of rain since July, more than double the annual average.
The slide, about a mile from the beach, occurred 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, 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.”
Jill Lockhart, 35, was awakened by the noise of shattering glass and walls. Barefoot and in shorts, Lockhart fled with sons Tyson, 2, over her shoulder and Trey, 4, stumbling along in his pajamas.
They got into a neighbor’s SUV, but their path was blocked by a utility pole. A teenage neighbor grabbed one child from her. They abandoned Flamingo Road as it buckled and plunged beneath them. They scrambled down the shrub- and dirt-covered hillside. Lockhart’s two-story home was destroyed.
“We had to run for our lives,” she said. “I don’t know how everyone got out alive.”
