Homes Evacuated as Hillside Gives Way : Studio City: Residents are allowed to return to all but one residence, which has major damage.

A group of hillside homes in Studio City was temporarily evacuated Tuesday morning after one house suffered serious damage when the hill behind it started to give way, authorities said. The same hillside slid in 1979, city officials said.

Just one home remained empty by the end of the day, as officials allowed residents to return but restricted their use of some rooms and back yards.

The most seriously affected home, at 11258 Laurie Drive, sustained major damage as interior and exterior walls cracked. Shattering glass could be heard throughout the neighborhood as windows broke under the pressure.

“The house is actually holding the hill back,” Los Angeles City Fire Battalion Chief Robert Mac Millan said. The house had been ordered evacuated March 14.

Mac Millan estimated that the area of the slide extended about 300 feet, encompassing six houses.

Neighbors said they could both hear and see the earth moving between a house on Laurie Place and the one directly below it at 11258 Laurie Drive.

“For the past week you could stand and listen and hear something crack every five minutes,” said Kevin Morford, who lives across the street from the house on Laurie Drive. “But since last night, we’ve been able to hear something move every five seconds. . . . At one point, it sounded like there were two guys out there with sledgehammers.”

“It sounded like snapping, popping and cracking,” another neighbor said.

Fire Department spokesman Gary Jenkins said the first report of damage was received a week ago--a three-inch crack between a back-yard pool and a wall at 3454 Laurie Place.

By Tuesday, officials discovered that the pool’s brick border, about 5 feet wide and more than 30 feet long, had dropped 6 to 8 feet. Los Angeles building inspectors ordered residents to stay out of the back yard, while declaring the house itself and the ones on either side safe.

Residents of the home on Laurie Drive left the structure Sunday when they realized that the hillside behind their home was moving, neighbors said.

The house was built before the city toughened building codes for erecting homes on hillsides, according to David Hsu, a geo-technical engineer with the city’s Department of Building and Safety.

Hsu said property owners may have to hire consultants to determine what caused the hill to slide.

“This is a typical hillside problem,” Hsu said. “Everybody thought that as long as the rains stopped, the problems would go away, but they have not,” Hsu said. He attributed the recurring difficulties to the steep slope on which the homes were built. The same hillside had given way in 1979 but was repaired, Hsu said.

Joseph Liebman, an attorney for the residents at 11258 Laurie Drive, said his clients plan to file a negligence lawsuit against their uphill neighbors. The residents of the house on Laurie Place declined to be interviewed.

“It’s a real tragedy for everybody involved,” Liebman said. “My clients are very upset that they had to vacate their house and that they have had to watch the continued desecration of their home.”

Hsu said city building inspectors plan to inspect the area daily and until the cause of the slide is determined. Department of Water and Power workers shut off service to the damaged home and rerouted power to surrounding ones.

Hsu said inspectors ordered a back yard, garage and one room to remain evacuated at a home next door to the damaged home on Laurie Drive.