2 Hurt as Los Feliz House Slides, Crashes Into Street

A home in the Los Feliz district near Griffith Park slid several feet down a steep slope and into the street Saturday afternoon, damaging the $350,000, split-level house beyond repair and injuring two people. Four others inside the house were not hurt.

Five residences near the three-bedroom home at 3583 Amesbury Road were ordered evacuated after firefighters said they found cracks in patios. The cause of the ground movement was not immediately apparent.

“I heard a sound and looked around, and I saw the hill coming down,” said John Mirhij, 77, one of six people in the house when it started moving. “The wall was cracking and collapsing and everything was coming down into the house like an earthquake.

“We could see the sky. There were inclined planes forming in the house so we couldn’t step anywhere. The floor was full of broken glass. My wife tried to escape through the door, but everything fell on her. She was held up by all the things falling on her. Her face was bleeding.”

Mirhij, father-in-law of the owner of the house, Dr. John Shammas, estimated it took about 15 minutes for the house to stop moving. A neighbor, who declined to identify himself, said the slide “took about five minutes at most. I heard a rumble, looked out the back and the hill and the house next door were going down.”

Mirhij’s wife, Genevieve, 63, was taken to Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, where a spokesman declined to discuss her injuries. Her granddaughter, Lina Shammas, 3, was reported to be have suffered cut feet.

Three others in the house, a maid whose identity was not known and two other Shammas children, Rania, 6, and Maya, 4, also were not injured. Their parents are attending a medical meeting in Cairo, Egypt.

When the house stopped moving, Mirhij said neighbors ran to help the children and firefighters freed his wife. Rubble buried a new Mercedes Benz and a new Cadillac in the garage at the street level. A car burglar alarm could be heard coming from the wreckage.

Pat Patterson, Fire Department spokesman, said the earth behind the Shammas’ house appeared to have slumped about eight feet. Battalion Chief Alan Schroeder said there was no signs of water leaking, although firefighters were still looking.

While waiting for a geologist and city building safety officials, the Fire Department ordered evacuation of two homes flanking the Shammas’ residence at 3601 and 4001 Woking Way. Three other homes situated on Amesbury Road, above the Shammas home, also were evacuated.

The evacuations were undertaken as a precaution until the geological reasons for the slide could be fully determined.