2 Families Get OK for Return to Homes in San Clemente Slide Area

Two of six San Clemente families forced to leave their houses after a landslide Sept. 3 left the structures on the brink of a 20-foot escarpment were told Monday that they could return, but it may be a few more days before they can actually move back in.

The delay is necessary, city officials and geologists said, because gas, water and sewage lines will have to be checked for leaks and stoppages.

The other four families face more than another month away from their dwellings in the 200 block of Via Alegre, officials said.

“In fact, we’ll be glad if we make it by Christmas,” said Patty Habig, who lives on Via Alegre with her husband, Don.

The homes of Betul Parrish and her daughter, who have been cared for by the American Red Cross, and Dr. and Mrs. Armando Desculapio, who have stayed in an apartment near his Pasadena office, have been declared safe for occupancy by Fritz Zapf, acting city engineer, on the recommendation of two geology firms.

The firms are Leighton & Associates, hired by the city, and G.A. Nicoll & Associates, hired by the owner of the Shorecliff Golf Course, which has several fairways running through the canyon below the slide area.

Temporary measures for stabilizing the slide area were outlined at a meeting late Monday of homeowners. It was attended by Zapf; Darrel Spence of Estrella Properties Ltd., which owns the golf course, and Hugh Marley, chief civil engineer of Nicoll & Associates.

Marley said it would take about 10 days to work out procedures for the preliminary restoration of the bluff where the landslide occurred and then “at least another five weeks, if everybody gets right at it,” to haul in fill dirt and do the necessary grading. About 120,000 cubic yards of earth were displaced in the slide.

He said it is believed the slide was caused by a combination of water seepage and weakened clay seams, but the source of the water remains a question.

Floyd M. Cate, president of the Assn. of Shorecliff Residents, presided at the meeting.