Clearing of Slide Debris on Tracks Will Begin Today

Railroad officials said work crews today will begin clearing the tracks of rubble from last week’s massive landslide, but it might be another week before normal Amtrak commuter service and freight shipments resume between Los Angeles and San Diego.

“We’ve had to go a lot slower than we originally expected,” Mike Martin, spokesman for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, said Tuesday.

The track closure--the state’s longest rail service shutdown in recent years--has disrupted the commute of about 5,000 daily passengers and sent freight companies seeking alternative transport for automobiles, animal feed, bakery products and other goods bound for San Diego.

The situation has become so severe that San Diego County’s $59-million egg industry is in jeopardy because chicken feed suppliers expect to run out of grain by Thursday unless new shipments arrive. If not, the region’s 4.6 million hens could stop laying eggs within days.

Meanwhile, government officials have estimated that the Feb. 22 landslide caused $7 million in damage in San Clemente, where five bluff-top homes were destroyed, and $1.5 million to private property in Dana Point. San Clemente property owners also suffered $6 million in losses during the Jan. 16 storm, said Jack Stubbs, city emergency coordinator. The homes are in San Clemente, but part of the cliff face, Pacific Coast Highway and the tracks below are in Dana Point.

Dana Point officials have given the green light to clear the tracks, saying city-hired geologists believe that the landslide, which covers more than 300 feet of Coast Highway at depths of up to 30 feet, has stabilized enough to permit work to start.

“We’re in agreement with the decision” to begin clearing the tracks, said Andy Anderson, Dana Point emergency services coordinator. “We’re convinced that the railroad has the safety of lives and property as their first concern.”

San Clemente officials said some residents who lost their homes in the latest landslide have already threatened legal action against the city. A Dana Point official who asked not to be identified said Tuesday that the city does not want to be held legally liable by the railroad company if more slides occur.

In addition to the five San Clemente homes lost to the slide, four others were evacuated, and an enclave of 192 expensive beachfront homes lies in the path of potential landslides.

“There’s a lot of nervousness around here,” the official said. “The geologists don’t really know for sure what’s going to happen when (the railroad) starts moving dirt around.”

The railroad caused alarm in Dana Point the first day after the slide when it expressed a desire to start work on the buried rails immediately, the official said.

“The first day they wanted to go right in there and bulldoze the tracks,” the official said. “We asked them not to make a move until (geological) studies could be done.”

San Clemente Mayor Truman Benedict said Tuesday that the railroad company is under a lot of pressure to get trains rolling again, but he added that Santa Fe officials have worked well with both cities.

The railroad company plans to build a 20-foot retaining wall between the slide and track to both help stabilize the cliff and keep any additional debris from falling on the track. Tuesday afternoon, railroad employees were poised to sink 44 steel girders up to 40 feet deep into the ground and slide wooden planks between them to form the wall.

Railroad spokesman Martin said geologists say that the break from the storms has given the collapsed hillside a chance to dry out and stabilize.

“We’re going in there with a pretty high degree of confidence,” Martin said. “The last thing we want to do is have workers out there trying to build a wall or work on tracks unless (there is) a low risk of another landslide.”

Another section of track outside of San Juan Capistrano was closed temporarily during Friday’s downpour. The banks of swollen Oso Creek eroded within 30 feet of the train line, said railroad officials.

Dirt from the Dana Point excavation work will be used to shore up the ravaged creek bed, Martin said.