Slide Leaves Scars Across La Conchita

The bulldozers and TV crews are gone, but the landslide remains at La Conchita--unmoved and, for now, unmovable.

Its 600,000-ton bulk, say those living around it, has changed this seaside village north of Ventura forever.

The landslide has forced the fearful to move out, sucked in the curious and the opportunistic, and driven a muddy, irritating wedge between once-close neighbors.

Three months ago today, in a pounding rain, the hillside suddenly gave way, loosing a mountain of mud that crushed nine ocean-view homes, damaged five more and caused hundreds of La Conchita residents to flee.

Recent Ventura County-funded geology studies indicate that another part of the hillside may be inching slowly toward the sea.

Though the settling of measurement wells could have caused readings showing two-tenths of an inch of change in the hillside, the readings also could have been caused by hillside slippage, said Al Echarren of the county Public Works Department.

And while state and county geologists ponder plans to stabilize the landslide, its loose-packed weight sprawls atop wrecked homes and a stretch of Vista Del Rincon Drive like a slumbering giant.

It is too risky to remove, geologists say, because clearing away the dirt and debris could trigger another landslide. But federal, state and county geologists are preparing plans for a study to determine the best way to stabilize the hillside against next winter’s rainstorms.

“The study will look at what kind of alternatives are there, what could be done and, if you could do it, what would it cost,” said county Supervisor Maggie Kildee. “That doesn’t even begin to talk about who is responsible to do it. That may end up being determined in a court.”

While the government weighs its next move, attorneys for some landslide victims are preparing a lawsuit to try to recover their clients’ losses.

Some residents have returned home, determined to live in La Conchita whatever the risk, while others came back only to pack up their things and move permanently.

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But the bucolic buzz of neighborly chatter has dulled considerably in some parts of town, where faded yellow notices on more than 100 houses warn that fresh landslides could hit any time, and tempers have fragmented under the stress.

Deeply divided over their future, how the lawsuit should be handled and whether they should stay, neighbors have been splitting into factions and even quarreling, said resident Kim Galvez.

This only compounds the stress they already feel over the risk of another landslide and the lack of any visible work to stop it, Galvez said.

“I think we’re beyond cranky,” Galvez said of the people of San Fernando Avenue. “I think we’re [ticked] off. One of my neighbors left me a nasty-gram on the fence because my dogs were barking last night.”

After two months of trailer life and another in a rented apartment, Galvez, her husband Ed, and their four children finally finished packing last week for a semi-permanent move to a rented home in Carpinteria.

They will not sell the house her parents left her, they dare not endanger anyone else by renting it out, and they’re too nervous to live there themselves. So they can only move out and wait, she said.

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“I feel abandoned, and the limbo goes on,” said Galvez, 39, as her 5-year-old son Jordan somberly shoved his Tonka trucks through a pile of sand left by emergency workers. “When we left, we thought we’d be out for just two weeks. That turned into a month, then a month turned into two months. Now it’s three months . . . I know what it’s like to be a homeless person.”

Sheila Fry, 51, and Bob Hurst, 54, are also angry.

With the toe of the landslide nuzzling their dining room window and a yellow tag on the siding denying them the right to live there, they have been bouncing for three months, from trailer camp to mobile home park, in a 29-foot travel trailer.

Unable to settle for long and unable to get the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Small Business Administration to give consistent help, they are growing frustrated and bitter.

“We’re living like damn gypsies,” said Hurst, a retired trucker. “I think it stinks.”

The couple have joined the lawsuit. And they have joined the growing group of residents grumbling that the dirt has not been moved, the hillside is still unstable and help from FEMA has been inconsistent.

But while Fry complains that the couple have received only one monthly FEMA check so far to pay for temporary housing costs, FEMA officials said the burden is partly on the disaster victims.

Fry, Hurst and others must continually recertify themselves for aid by sending in receipts showing they are renting temporary housing, said Bill Sanders, a congressional liaison to FEMA.

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“Instead of being persistent and calling the help-line number, there are a lot of people who sat quietly and had a problem and didn’t make it known to us,” Sanders said.

Often, it is hard for FEMA workers to find disaster victims who have left their homes, he said.

“La Conchita’s just sort of become a ghost town,” he said. “And it’s a real puzzle to anyone what happens next.”

On that, Fry and Sanders agreed.

“We can’t make any plans, and that’s the real kicker,” said Fry, gazing sourly past the tip of her cigarette at the tumble of dirt and crushed houses in her side yard.

“ Limbo is the perfect word for it,” said Fry, an electronics technician. “You can’t remodel it. You can’t sell it. So we wait. And that’s all we’ve done, is wait.”

Rumors are becoming more widespread and outlandish by the day: The hillside’s going to fall again this month; the county’s waiting for everyone to leave so they can let a developer sweep the village clean and build some big, costly paradise; the state and federal governments plan to condemn La Conchita and buy everybody out.

So far, the last of these is the only one that may have substance:

The governor’s Office of Emergency Services plans to apply for a $63-million pot of FEMA money earmarked for disaster-hazard mitigation after the winter’s storms.

The money could be used to buy endangered properties, stabilize the hillside or take other steps to reduce the danger of a landslide, said Nancy Ward, chief deputy coordinating officer for the Office of Emergency Services.

Her office soon will mail notices about the availability of the grant money to Ventura County and other governments hit by the storms, she said.

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Meanwhile, said security guard Donnie Paulin, looky-loos from as far away as England and Portugal cruise up to gawk at La Conchita’s wreckage.

And La Conchita’s people seem to be dividing themselves steadily between the stays and the stay-nots.

“There’s no reason to move,” said Don Lee, 45, a 10-year resident of Zelzah Avenue. As long as water from underground streams continues to leak out instead of building up behind the landslide, he said, “I don’t think they’re going to have a problem with it.”

And Lee said there is no point in bickering over the lawsuit or whether the county or La Conchita Ranch Corp.--which owns the failed hillside--should pay for the cleanup. La Conchita is changed.

“They’re going to have to come to terms with themselves,” he said. “And realize that La Conchita is not going to be the same.”

Neighbor Don Watkins agreed. The town will not go away--bargain-hunting home buyers are taking advantage of fire-sale prices on houses that some La Conchita owners are offering in the stunted market, he said.

But neither can it be completely restored to its condition before the landslide just by suing the county or the ranch.

“We have some wonderful people here,” Watkins said gently. “And they’re just confused.”

FYI

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster help line phone number is (800) 525-0321.