Swim Pool on Top of Hill Breaks Loose, Perils Homes : Landslide: Damage has mounted to $1.5 million, and six homes face new danger. Workmen seek to stabilize the pool and hillside.

Six families whose hillside properties are threatened by a landslide braced for further destruction Tuesday after a swimming pool on the top of the undermined hill broke free from its foundation, threatening to topple onto the homes below.

Two of the homes endangered by the landslide are on top of the hill, the others are at the bottom of the slope.

The slide has already caused at least $1.5 million damage to the six properties, city engineers said Tuesday. The city on Monday condemned one home and ordered the evacuation of two others.

Officials granted an emergency permit to Sanford Schpiro to begin construction to reinforce the hill below his home to prevent his pool from following part of its patio down the slope. Workmen with tractors and huge drills worked around the clock, boring holes, removing dirt and preparing to pour cement pilings to stabilize the back yard, the pool and the house.

Residents speculated that a persistent leak from the Schpiros’ pool began eroding the slope two months ago and that the pumping of water from the pool on Sunday for repairs led to the hillside’s collapse on Monday. The Schpiros refused repeated requests for comment on the allegations.

Paul Filipowicz, whose house at 26375 Calle Lucana was the one condemned, said he is convinced that the slide was caused by the swimming pool leak. His neighbor, Mark Welsh, made a video of a workman siphoning water from the Schpiro pool with a hose Sunday and draining it onto the slope below.

“They told us they kept trying to refill the pool Sunday and it kept draining down the hill,” Welsh said. “In my mind, the whole slide seems to emanate from that pool.”

The threatened homes are assessed at $230,000 to $530,000.

City Engineer Bill Huber refused to speculate on the cause of the slide at a press conference Tuesday. Geologists said, however, that the soil throughout the area is susceptible to slippage, especially when soaked. There was also speculation from longtime resident Al Jimenez that lots along Via Alano were created within the last 15 years with extensive grading and filling, which might have contributed to the collapse.

“We can look at the cause of the slide once we have done the geological work,” Huber said. “Anything else would be pure speculation, which I don’t want to get into.”

The Filipowicz residence, whose structural integrity had been violated by the weight of the landslide crashing into it Monday, was still standing Tuesday though it had cracked almost in half and hung precariously over the street.

During the day, the three displaced families were assisted by friends and neighbors as they removed belongings from their residences. City officials monitored the operation but insisted that their financial responsibility is limited.

“Unless public safety is directly involved, we can’t get in the way,” City Manager Stephen B. Julian said. “Once the safety issue is taken care of, it’s a civil matter between the property owners.”

Also Tuesday, officials gave the Filipowiczes a temporary reprieve on the demolition order for their home, saying the ground had apparently stabilized for the moment. Paul Filipowicz and his wife, Sue, spent the day at a neighbor’s home where they contacted their insurance companies and attorneys.

“I just want my insurance company to completely survey the situation before anything changes to my house,” Filipowicz said. “It will be up to the insurance companies to battle this out.”

Any rain at this point could trigger further earth movement in the waterlogged slope and damage to the properties, said Siamak Jafroudi, vice president of Petra Geotechnical Inc., a Costa Mesa firm that is examining the slide for the city.

Geologists have said that soils in the city are very susceptible to slippage after sustained watering or heavy rainfall.

The area is on bedrock known as the Capistrano Formation, which extends from Mission Viejo to north Camp Pendleton. The formation was created 7 million years ago when the ocean receded, leaving sandy silt and clay deposits.

The slide is the second in the city in a year. Last March three families were ordered to leave their homes after a landslide toppled trees, shattered retaining walls and tore a chasm into the hillside in the Dana Mesa subdivision, about a mile west of Calle Lucana.

Insurance companies have refused to pay damage claims filed by the Dana Mesa homeowners, who are now planning to sue the city to get money for the repairs.

Local insurance agents said Tuesday that it is unlikely that insurance companies will honor claims from the latest victims because many policies have exclusions for earth movement. Paul Green, a San Juan Capistrano insurance agent, said that even earthquake insurance does not cover such disasters.

“It depends on the company and the policy, but generally speaking, earth movement is excluded from homeowners’ insurance,” he said. “Insurance companies can argue that the movement could have been tied to the work of the contractor or the guy who compacted the soil or someone else. So, they say, why should we cover that?”