Unsettling New Problem Hits Anaheim Hills : Disaster: A couple of miles from landslide spot, the ground under six homes is settling, caused by heavy rain. Another slide has also been discovered at a park.

A couple of miles from the spot where hundreds of residents have been devastated by a massive landslide, about half a dozen other homeowners are experiencing a similar, but slightly different, natural disaster: The ground under their houses is settling.

Despite the damage, which includes cracks in foundations, walls and driveways, city officials have determined that the six affected homes “are habitable” and no evacuations are being considered.

Officials said Wednesday that the same heavy rain that sparked the rapid movement of a 25-acre landslide in Anaheim Hills two months ago is now causing the ground under a portion of Paseo Carmel road to settle.

“The homes show signs of both lateral and vertical movement,” said City Geologist Mark McLarty. He added that the problem is not directly related to the Jan. 18 landslide, which caused the evacuation of 45 homes.

In the more recent incident, the geological problem is not a landslide, but a settling of about 30 to 40 feet of landfill, McLarty said. The rains caused the fill to settle, sink and become more dense, he said.

Anaheim Fire Chief Jeff Bowman said the city was told about the problem last Friday. Since then, city work crews have inspected water, sewer and utility lines in the area, but have taken no action to mitigate the problem.

Bowman said city officials “are concerned” about the situation “and will be following up on it.”

McLarty said he has surveyed the area but has not determined how severe the problem might be in the upscale neighborhood, with homes valued at about $300,000.

Homeowner Ronald D. Adams said cracks in his driveway and buckling in his home and garage started appearing shortly after the January rains.

“I have cracks as big as three or four inches in some places,” he said.

Adams said his family faces some of the same financial problems that befell landslide victims: making mortgage payments on property that has decreased in value and being stuck with damage that is not covered by homeowners insurance and may be too costly to repair.

He described “not being evacuated” as “the only good thing that has happened. . . . We really don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Carol Arata, another resident whose Paseo Carmel home has cracks in the garage and driveway, said she has picked up applications to seek federal assistance to repair the damage.

“We’re naturally concerned about this,” she said of the damage. “We not really sure where we can go from here.”

In another development, city officials have found a “surface landslide” in rugged Pelanconi Park, also in Anaheim Hills.

That slide is about 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and about eight feet deep, city spokesman Dennis Schmidt said. The chunk of earth broke away from a slope in the nature park but caused no damage. The area is several miles from the main slide.

Schmidt said the park slide was discovered Monday and also appeared to have been caused by the heavy rainfall of the past couple of months.

At a press briefing Wednesday, city officials said the current movement of the main 25-acre landslide is minimal and efforts to stabilize it are continuing.

Officials have drilled 102 wells that pump about 290,000 gallons of water daily out of the hillside in an attempt to further slow the movement of the slide, which has caused at least $7 million in damage.

Bowman said city officials should have enough information in the next two weeks to decide whether the evacuated residents may move back into their homes.

“The city will not, in my opinion, come out and say this landslide is over and the land is perfectly safe for you to go back,” Bowman said. “It will become a decision for the homeowners.”

McLarty, however, talks about the slide as if it were a living animal.

“This beast is going to be there forever,” McLarty said.

He likened the slide to a “maintainable disease” that could be taken care of with “proper therapy.” But he added that he does not yet have enough information to prescribe that treatment.