Slide Victims’ Neighbors Fear They May Be Next

Only a matter of feet and some shrubbery separate Tony and Betty Randles’ bluff-top home from the cliff’s jagged edge.

It was here that a massive landslide destroyed five homes on La Ventana on Monday night, and with more rain on the way, the Randleses and dozens of others along the San Clemente coast could only hope Wednesday that their expensive, ocean-view homes won’t be next.

“We’re watching for cracks,” said Tony Randles, who along with wife Betty was evacuated the night of the slide but since has been allowed to return home.

The couple have put precious keepsakes and copies of important computer disks into a box “just in case” a fast exit is necessary, he said.

A neighbor of the Randleses, Diane Ward, shook her head in sad wonder Wednesday at how quickly everything had changed in her breezy and once-beautiful neighborhood.

“We really loved having our neighbors; we had friends,” said Ward, who lives across the street from the destroyed homes on La Ventana. “Now we’re missing half of them. That’s devastating.”

While Ward is worried that the slide could continue with the coming rains, her first concern has been helping those around her. Three neighbors from two ruined homes, along with their pets, stayed with her the first night.

She has since helped them move their belongings and find more permanent lodgings.

And she waits.

“What can I do?” Ward asked, looking out on the breathtaking views from her own two-story home. “I can’t do anything to stabilize the cliff anymore than anyone else.”

Deborah Walton, 53, who also lives on La Ventana, laughed nervously when the topic got around to the weather forecast.

Even though her house is across the street from those that either plunged down the bluff or were so badly battered they must be demolished, she doesn’t dare discount that her home might be the next one to topple down the sleep slope.

Yet she has made no plans or preparation for the worst.

“Right now, I’m just saying that ignorance is bliss,” Walton said while standing in front of a neighbor’s house. “The Fire Department hasn’t come knocking on my door, so I guess it’s OK until someone tells me otherwise.”

Her neighbor, Ann Rogers, who lives directly on the bluff and was evacuated Monday night, is worried about her home slipping, but she doesn’t know what preventive action to take.

“There’s nothing much we can do,” said Rogers, 55, who has moved back into her home. “I just hope that all the movement has stopped so we can feel safe again.”

Up and down San Clemente’s coastal bluffs, the anxiety was high.

About a quarter-mile away from the La Ventana neighborhood, in the Colony Cove retirement community also perched high above Pacific Coast Highway, city officials continued to monitor several homes damaged during last month’s heavy storms.

Some homeowners fear additional damage but realize that the possibility of landslides is a risk one takes when buying a home that’s literally located on the edge.

“We’re real concerned; we don’t know when it’s going to stop, but we live on a bluff, so what can we expect when it rains?” asked Keith Klinger, 83, who lives on Camino San Clemente. “Ever since those houses (on La Ventana) went downhill, we’ve been worried, thinking if it happens there, it can happen here.”

Back on La Ventana, Peter and Edith Shikli returned Wednesday to the brick and wood frame home they lived in for eight years. It was destroyed Monday, and they were returning to salvage belongings from their garage.

The couple have taken their misfortune in stride, they said, and plan to move on.

“Last night, we took the keys off our key chains and tossed them somewhere, I don’t remember,” said Peter Shikli, 42.

“We’re going to move into a one-bedroom, blue-collar apartment and go from there,” he said. “We’ve been worried about this thing the last couple of days and now, we’re at the point where it’s all over.”

TRAINS CAN’T RUN: B6