Threat of mudslide brings back memories of ’98 tragedy for Laguna Beach homeowners

Late last week, as the storm that whipped through Southern California began, Charlie and Ann Quilter weren’t much worried.

A retired commercial airline pilot adept at reading weather patterns, Charlie monitored radar on a cable television channel. He figured the rains would be bad but nothing like the angry heart of the storm that had sent mud crashing through their Laguna Beach home nearly 13 years ago, destroying most of it and killing a neighbor who’d been sitting in their living room.

This time they were safe, the Quilters told themselves. After all, they’d worked long and hard to rebuild their canyon home — nestled under a cliff that becomes a waterfall in a storm. They’d buttressed it well enough to withstand nearly any of nature’s blows.

By Tuesday night, however, the rain was driving steadily harder. The water gauge in the driveway edged toward 10 inches of precipitation in four days. Charlie understood that the hills looming above his home were soaked, that the downpour could easily unleash cascades of freshly loosened mud.

“Let’s just say that with all we’ve gone through, I was very alert, very watchful,” recalled Charlie, who even in times of stress has the matter-of-fact manner one would expect of a former Marine who flew more than 250 combat missions in Vietnam.

His daughter Emily, 30, sitting next to her father as he looked back at the week, was more pointed: “I went to bed Tuesday night scared out of my mind. I was so worried my heart was beating out of my chest.”

By 3 a.m. Wednesday, as the storm settled above the Orange County coast, there was little room for calm. The walls at the Quilter home shook and the house filled with a long, low rumble that would not stop. It seemed as if the ground were shifting. From their bedroom, Charlie and Ann heard a boom and a sharp crack; the sound, they would come to find, of a laurel tree bursting apart.

“Get up!” Charlie told his wife. “Get out! Now!”

Charlie gave himself time only to grab his computer hard drive and his keys. He, Ann and Emily ran outside, across a footbridge they’d built after the last devastating storm; it connected the front door to a paved area designed as a haven.

They could see little through the downpour, but could hear much: the fury of mud, branches, rocks and small boulders sliding fast around their house. It brought back terrible memories.

On Feb. 23, 1998, Laguna Beach was pounded by a storm similar to the one that buffeted much of Southern California this week. As if from a spigot, silt and debris crashed through homes, offices, trailers, body shops and art galleries in the Quilters’ tight-knit, eclectic little neighborhood on Laguna Canyon Road. The road itself, which swerves down a hill into the center of Laguna Beach, became a river.

Back then, the Quilters were sure they would remain unscathed even though they lived in what Charlie calls an “an old-timey, World War II-era cottage” built atop a normally dry riverbed that became a stream during a storm. So confident were they that they gave shelter to a group of neighbors who had fled badly damaged homes and been soaked by swells of mud and water. The Quilters invited the group into their home, gave them towels, dry clothing, and told them to stay the night.

As fate would turn, about an hour later the Quilter home was inundated by a massive debris slide off the cliff. Charlie, in his upstairs bedroom, found his footing. But the neighbors and Ann were swept away, sent crashing through windows and busted walls, carried off by swells of thick, wet dirt.

Ann barely survived.

One of the neighbors, Glenn Flook, didn’t. A construction framer from England known for his friendly manner, Flook’s lifeless body was found wedged beneath a mobile home about 50 yards downstream. He was 25.

“Something that terrible, that painful, well, it stays with you, stays for good,” Charlie said somberly. “Here we were, wanting to help…. “ His voice trailed off.

For nearly two years after that 1998 night, Charlie, Ann, Emily and C.J., her younger brother, lived in the temporary shelter of a mobile home. They tended deep emotional wounds. They cobbled together help from family and government loans for disaster victims, enough to rebuild.

The old house had given little attention to the danger brought by storms. The new home — designed with an off-beat nod to Tudor style — became a monument to safety.

It sat entirely on bedrock and was anchored to concrete pylons drilled 13 feet into the ground. A concrete wall that wrapped around large parts of the foundation deflected debris flows. The Quilters reclaimed a natural waterway that had been largely buried and dormant, beating back brush and branches until they ended up with what amounted to a sandstone-lined water diversion system.

The reconstruction wasn’t all utilitarian. To honor Flook and the tragic night and the tender care they ended up receiving from the community, the Quilters built a special garden with low bushes that formed the shape of a heart.

On Wednesday morning, rushing away from their home at 3:30 a.m., the Quilters could only pray. Ann and Emily piled into a Ford SUV. Charlie was just behind them in his BMW. As they caravaned down their hilly driveway, they found Laguna Canyon Road had again become a river, four feet deep in parts, too treacherous to navigate. All they could do was wait.

Hours later, daylight approached. The Quilters returned to their home and found it had held up exactly as planned: The foundation remained firm. The roaring mud and debris had angled through the waterway, under the footbridge and safely off the property.

“We lost a few plants — a succulent, a fern — and some large rocks moved around,” Charlie said. “But overall this was a good test, the best since ‘98, and it looks like we did things right. With all we’ve been through, it sure feels good.”

Maybe it was good fortune as much as engineering. Their neighborhood, after all, ended up dappled with every outcome: unscathed structures next to structures bent, busted and drenched to the core by the storm. No matter the reason, Charlie and Ann, considering themselves lucky, vowed to spend the next several days helping others.

Wednesday night, the storm having passed, they held an impromptu dinner party. Chicken and pasta was served. Wine and conversation flowed. As they’d hoped to do that night a dozen years ago, the Quilters welcomed neighbors who needed comfort and care and somewhere safe to rest.

kurt.streeter@latimes.com