Last January and February,
a number of Southern California residents lost their homes in landslides. As
record amounts of rain fell on the region, hillsides failed and sent million-dollar
homes, swimming pools, cars and lives cascading into the valleys below. Three
homeowners, however, lost their houses to a different type of landslide —
a slow-moving one that is now raising concerns about building regulations and
natural hazards in California and elsewhere.
This multimillion-dollar home in Anaheim, Calif., has cracked over the last
several months due to a slow-moving landslide and has since had to be demolished.
Questions remain about why exactly this home and others were built on the site
in the first place. Courtesy of John Nicoletti, City of Anaheim.
A few years ago, construction began on three multimillion-dollar homes on Ramsgate
Drive in the affluent Anaheim Hills neighborhood of Orange County. Two of the
homes were finished and inhabited, and one was still under construction. Before
this winter’s heavy rains set in, one of the homeowners noticed a crack
in the foundation of his house. Over the coming weeks, the homeowners called
in city inspectors and consulting geologists, who noticed more cracks and subsequently
tested the soil and incline on the hill. After further earth movement following
heavy rains, they ultimately determined that the homes were atop a slow-moving
landslide and that one of the houses must be demolished to save one of the other
two, says John Nicoletti, spokesman for the City of Anaheim.
Unfortunately, Nicoletti says, in the end, it was a futile effort, as one home
was demolished and the other two have been “red-tagged”: They are
uninhabitable, and demolition is pending. Now, the nature of the hillside —
an unstable ancient landslide deposit deep beneath layers of recent fill material
— and the civil engineering of the home sites are sparking debate over
why these structures cracked and were demolished. And the question of who was
responsible, Nicoletti says, will likely lead to litigation.
From the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, the California Geological Survey mapped most
of the landslides — from ancient to probable future ones — throughout
the state, under a state landslide mapping act, says John Parrish, executive
officer of the California State Mining & Geology Board.
Since then, under a seismic hazard act, the survey has continued monitoring
landslide-prone regions and revising the maps as necessary.
The maps show areas that are susceptible to landslide movement and that “probably
are unsafe to build on without specific engineering” designed to counteract
nature, Parrish says. Released on April 15, 1998, the Anaheim Hills quadrangle
map “showed specifically that the location on Ramsgate Drive that failed
was considered highly likely to be subject to landslide movement,” Parrish
says. “All three houses were built since that map was released, and all
three houses slid. It’s not surprising.”
In California, a seismic hazards disclosure law requires prospective home or
land sellers to inform potential buyers if the property is within a seismic
hazard zone that includes landslides, says Charles Buckley, an engineering geologist
with California Environmental Geologists and Engineers, Inc., in Camarillo,
Calif. That disclosure should include whether or not the land is an ancient
landslide deposit, as mapped by the California survey, he says, and all of the
paperwork should be on file with the city or county.
Before a house is built, homeowners must submit construction plans with a geologic
assessment of the land and engineering plan to the city or county planning departments,
which should compare the hazard maps to the plans before approving construction,
Parrish says. However, Nicoletti says, most cities or counties, including the
City of Anaheim, do not have the resources to individually examine each property’s
geology, so they have to rely on the owners and the geology consultants to do
that. Furthermore, he says, “when a person invests $2.5 million in a piece
of dream property, it’s difficult for us to say to someone ‘you can’t
build your dream home there’ if their consultant says that they can.”
And that seems to be where the problem lies, Parrish says. “Somewhere along
the line, someone dropped the ball,” he says, and “right now, the
attorneys for the homeowners whose homes were demolished are busily trying to
figure out who that was.” Either “the city should never have approved
the plan because the engineering plan for construction wasn’t solid or
the geotechnical work was faulty for some unknown reason,” says Stephen
Testa, president of Testa Environmental Corporation in Mokelumne Hill, Calif.
(and president of the American Geological Institute, which publishes Geotimes).
“As of now there is no readily available answer, but you can be assured
one will come.”
In the meantime, Testa says, state, county or city agencies in charge of planning
need to take more of a leadership role in approving or not approving projects.
Indeed, Buckley says, “a regulatory review by the agencies is an important
and necessary part of the building process.” Too many projects sneak through
that shouldn’t, he says, and if the cities don’t have geologists on
staff, “they can farm the work out.”
Still, Buckley says, with the large amount of rain that the region has gotten
over the past few months — more than 32 inches since July — this year’s
weather situation seems a testament to modern geological engineering. Most of
the homes on the hillsides that did fail, he says, were built prior to state
ordinances that require landslide mitigation engineering.
Megan Sever
Links:
City
of Anaheim
California
State Mining & Geology Board
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