abc7.com

October 4, 2007

La Jolla Slide Focuses Attention on Danger to Hillside Homes

Geologist: 'There's a Risk to Pay for the View'

By Micah Ohlman

ANAHEIM HILLS (KABC-TV) - The landslide in La Jolla has focused new attention on the danger to homes in the Los Angeles area.

Southern California has a long history of hillside homes being destroyed by Earth movement yet the building continues square in the face of risk.

In Laguna Niguel in March 1998, a family's livelihood slipped away. In Anaheim Hills in February 2005, multi-million-dollar homes were destroyed in a landslide. Laguna Hills in June 2005 and La Jolla earlier this week, and the list goes on.

"There's a risk to pay for the view," Dr. Jeff Knott, a geologist from Cal State Fullerton, said.

A risk many in Southern California are willing to take even in older homes like those swallowed in the La Jolla slide, built in the 1960s on what is now outdated hillside engineering.

"Forty years ago the codes weren't enforced ... as stringently as they are today. What was adequate design was much less then as well. So as a result older homes ... still have some susceptibility," Dr. Knott said.

What's worse, insurance policies simply don't cover landslides. So where does a hillside home buyer turn? Since 1998 California has required home sellers to present what's called a natural hazard disclosure report as part of the sale.

"If you're selling a home, you have to give the buyer an h.d. report and also the statewide report that talks about the natural hazard geological areas," John Valdez, a realtor, said.

But California real estate laws don't require past landslides to be disclosed in a sale unless they're shown within that natural hazard report. And in some areas that information isn't included, why it's up to the buyers to pay for a geological study to find out if they really are on solid ground.

"There's no flags that the geologist might see evidence of past landsliding or something in the historic photos before it was built," Dr. Knott said.

Structural engineers will tell you there is no way to rule out the possibility of a landslide if you build on a slope. In the words of one geologist, nature doesn't like steep slopes and gravity never sleeps. A gamble more and more in Southern California are willing to take.