Landslide’s Pace Slows Sharply as Residents Keep Vigil : Geology: Rowland Heights homeowners hold makeshift cookout, await action by authorities.

Mohammad Lateef spent an unsettling Saturday listening to the crackle and hiss of dirt clods landing near his home in Rowland Heights.

“My little one was very depressed. This morning she said, ‘Dad, I want to get out of here,’ ” commented Lateef about concerns over a sliding hillside that has threatened a block of homes.

“It was a very beautiful hill--kids used to go up there and fly kites,” he said.

After scrambling away Friday morning when the grassy hill made unneighborly moves toward their homes, some residents in the unincorporated section of the San Gabriel Valley turned their weekend into a restless vigil.

Owners of four homes who were asked to evacuate Friday mingled with other neighbors along Morning Sun Avenue and Shepherd Hills Road. Some trucked away belongings just to be safe, while others fired up a family grill for a makeshift block party-style cookout as trickles of earth fell onto the buckled asphalt nearby.

The hill advanced little Saturday--a refreshing change from Friday morning’s one-inch-per-hour pace. When the homeowners’ ordeal began shortly after 10:30 a.m. Friday, the 100-foot hill was lurching northwest. It caused part of a street to buckle, crashed into bordering properties, twisted fences, plunged into hot tubs and triggered the voluntary evacuation of the four families.

At a multi-agency meeting Friday night, frustrated residents received few answers about what caused the hill to move, or when their homes will be safe. Geologists hope to begin boring into the unstable earth today, according to Gary Hartley, a Los Angeles County Department of Public Works supervisor.

Meanwhile, some residents will bunk with friends and relatives.

“I know we like to do a little bit of baby-sitting for our grandson,” said Yung Hwa Kim, who moved from Morning Sun to her son’s house in Corona on Friday. “Maybe I can make a full-time job of it.”