Families Flee as Mysterious Slide Cracks 2 Homes

City officials moved quickly Monday to evacuate two families as a landslide undermined their $300,000 homes and threatened to collapse them.

As witnesses heard one house buckling and cracking, neighbors frantically emptied swimming pools to reduce pressure on the inexplicably fragile soil, while other residents and city officials watched to see whether a 100-yard fissure in the hillside would widen to affect more homes.

The crescent-shaped fissure was the most dramatic sign of the collapsing ground along Calle Lucana in a subdivision about a mile west of Mission San Juan Capistrano. But the cause of the landslide, the fissure and the collapse of part of the hillside remained unknown.

City officials, facing their second major landslide in 12 months, huddled on the small cul-de-sac to the background sounds of the Filipowicz home being torn apart.

“Quite honestly, we don’t know what has happened here,” said City Engineer Bill Huber. “We can see obvious signs of movement in the hillside. We are bringing in geologists to advise us.”

“I keep thinking this is a nightmare and I’m going to wake up and have my home again,” said Sue Filipowicz, whose family piled its belongings in the street after being ordered out of their home by city engineers. “But it’s a nightmare that doesn’t go away.”

The Filipowiczes said signs of the landslide were first evident two months ago when cracks appeared in the walls of their two-story custom-built home.

Next door, Nita DiSchino fought back tears as she, her son and her daughter began emptying their home. Early Monday, DiSchino’s patio was crumpled by the earth movement, but her most pressing danger was the possibility that the sideways swaying of the Filipowicz home would send it toppling into the DiSchino house.

Movers and city crews worked frantically Monday to empty the Filipowiczes’ house as it teetered on the edge of collapse. The family’s belongings were hastily stacked in the street, but late Monday officials halted the salvage effort as the state of the home became more perilous.

The landslide rattled the nerves of other residents in the neighborhood, which was developed about a decade ago. It went through a similar landslide in March. No homes were destroyed then.

On Via Alano, the street on the hilltop just above the slide, Teri Parker drained her swimming pool and watched in horror as the hill continued to drop.

“This ridge was not here until yesterday,” she said, pointing to the widening scar where the earth had dropped away from her back yard.