Marauding Mudslide Continues Assault on Spring Valley Home

A miniature avalanche continued to ravage the home of a Spring Valley family, who were forced to move out after a mudslide moved in.

“I’m so tired. I’m still trying to put everything together,” Lenora Pullin said Tuesday.

Pullin, along with her two daughters and her 80-year-old father, checked into a Lemon Grove hotel last Thursday after mounds of muddy earth pushed their way into the family’s home.

So far, the piles of dirt have overtaken the Pullins’ family room and are just a few feet away from bursting into the dining room and bedrooms, Pullin said. The home’s chimney also had collapsed by Tuesday.

“The walls are cracking and it’s still making noise,” said Jackie Barthel, a service manager with the Red Cross. “It’s like it’s alive . . . it’s very scary and my heart goes out to them.”

Pullin said she still doesn’t know whether insurance will pay for the damage, but she said she and her family plan to move into a Spring Valley apartment on Saturday,

“She (Pullin) is in an awful situation,” Barthel said. “To watch the dirt slowly move into her home and know that she has the children and her father to take care of is putting her in a devastating situation.”

To ease the Pullins’ tragedy, the Red Cross has provided the family with food and a hotel room over the past week, Barthel said. The organization also plans to indefinitely foot the bill for the family’s apartment rent and pay for electricity and phone service deposits.

Stormy forecasts predicted for the remainder of this week have instilled fear in nearby neighbors.

“I’m really worried about a lot of mud moving down fast,” said Linda Hansen, who lives next door to the Pullins.

Hansen said she and her two sons have been transporting about six wheelbarrows of dirt a day from their back yard.