Emergency Plan to Reinforce Road Approved

The Malibu City Council has unanimously approved an emergency plan to brace a 100-foot-deep landslide on Kanan Dume Road against the storm flow during the rainy season, holding off on a more permanent stabilization of the slide that could cost up to $1.5 million.

“We were trying to come up with a project that would give us the most bang for our buck,” said John Clement, director of public works for Malibu. The $50,000 plan approved Monday, which should be finished in a few weeks, will extend a collapsed 54-inch-wide storm drain and cover the huge fissures in the slipping earth to prevent further erosion when the winter rains begin.

“If we have a heavy storm, it can saturate the slide and create mudflow and debris flow downstream,” Clement said.

Malibu officials closed Kanan Dume Road on Sept. 24 after the sliding ground sent deep cracks shooting through the asphalt. Since then, the sinking earth on the side of the thoroughfare has fallen at a rate of four feet a day.

A more permanent solution to the acre-wide landslide cannot be identified until the city completes an engineering study in the next few weeks, officials said. The City Council will discuss the findings during its first meeting in November.

“We’ll be lucky to get [the road] open in January,” Clement said.