Slide Victims Watch and Wait : Rain aftermath: One resident remains in her home as the earth continues to move under five houses on a San Juan Capistrano hillside.

Gladys Leigh spent her younger years preparing for snowstorms in England. Then, four decades ago, she braced herself for earthquakes when she moved to California.

Now, at 75, she is dealing with the rain--and what it is doing to her hillside home in San Juan Capistrano. Sodden from the downpours, the ground behind her home is shifting, creating a slow-moving landslide that threatens to take away her back yard, and possibly her house.

So Leigh, an Avon saleswoman, packed some clothes, her important documents and a makeup kit in a suitcase and stashed it in her car trunk, ready to escape in case the slopes behind her house come sliding down.

“I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” Leigh said. “But it’s given me a stomachache for the last three days.”

That’s the way it’s been for Leigh and residents of four other homes in the Dana Mesa subdivision since last Saturday, when a landslide toppled trees and shrubs, shattered retaining walls, and dumped earth into the back yards of two residences.

No one was injured and none of the five houses threatened were damaged. But city and fire officials have asked residents to evacuate their homes or take precautions by staying in the front section of their houses.

The Fire Department has cordoned off the homes with yellow “Do Not Cross” ribbons, and the gas company, fearing that a further slide could rupture a gas main, shut off supplies to the houses on Monday.

Some residents have been sleeping at neighbors’ houses, others have been moved to a local hotel. Leigh has been sleeping on her living room sofa for the past three nights.

Residents noticed the damage Saturday morning after last week’s heavy rains. As his family prepared to attend the annual Swallows Day parade in town, Jack Swallows of Purple Sage Lane noticed that a portion of his back yard overlooking the Dana Point Marina and Capistrano Beach had dropped a few inches.

Swallows said he jumped over his fence to investigate and saw the earth shifting and rolling into a neighbors’ yard on Dana Mesa Drive below.

“It was kind of eerie,” Swallows said. “You could hear the earth creeping and the trees popping.”

When city officials investigated, they discovered the earth movement had created a 30-foot chasm and had swallowed a 10-foot-square deck in the back yard of a neighbor who lives below on Dana Mesa. It also crumpled a 20-foot section of a retaining wall.

City workers placed sandbags and thick plastic sheets over the Swallows’ lawn to prevent further erosion. The city also installed a 60-foot-long plastic pipe to replace a concrete drainage ditch that slid down the hill.

“It’s very scary,” Ann Swallows said. “We’ve lived here for 21 years and we didn’t realize this could happen. Now we’re taking it day by day.”

David Peter, who operates a geo-technological firm hired by the city, said preliminary reports indicate that the slide was caused by over-irrigation and the recent heavy rains.

Residents said a few homes in the subdivision had been damaged by landslides several years ago. Ron Sievers, director of public lands and facilities for the city, said he was seeking the subdivision’s geological records to determine how severe the danger might be.

Sievers said it may be several days before residents are allowed to return to their houses.

The Swallows said they plan to sleep at the neighbors’ home for the next week.

Clarissa Alvarez and her three children, who are renting one of the Dana Mesa Drive houses threatened by the slide, were lodged in a local hotel. On Monday afternoon, the family briefly visited the house to get a change of clothing.

“It’s like being on vacation in your own hometown,” Alvarez, 38, said of living in a hotel not far from her residence. “We have to get used to eating out because there’s no place to cook.”

“I miss the dogs,” said her 15-year-old son, Benjamin, noting that they had to check their three dogs into a Dana Point kennel after the slide.

Leigh, however, was planning to sleep another night on the living room sofa. “I had a flat tire and my TV went out on me,” Leigh said.

“Now this. . . . This has not been my week.”