In Canyon, Threat Looms Over Homes

It’s literally a cliffhanger.

Perched neck-achingly high above four tiny homes on a twisted dirt road called Hide-a-way, the boulder has been part of the bluff for as long as anyone can remember. But it’s cracking away from the main rock face on the eve of a powerful storm.

“There’s one large, very precarious rock hanging over those homes that has everyone worried,” said Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Dennis Childress of Fire Station 15, about a mile down Silverado Canyon. “To tell the truth, no one has figured out what to do about it.”

Hit by massive mudslides last year, the handful of homes beneath the boulder stood empty Monday afternoon, declared unsafe to live in by Orange County’s Emergency Management Agency.

The rock was just one worry for Childress and other area emergency personnel. With the latest wallop of winter rain predicted to head inland, oceanfront residents hoped to be spared this go around, while the county’s eastern mountain canyons were expected to be hard hit.

Mel Newman, who forecasts weather conditions for Orange County, predicted 4 to 6 inches could be dumped on southern and western slopes overnight and through Tuesday.

Canyon residents, who over the years have weathered every force nature can unleash, say they are ready--but not exactly worked up.

“If that gorge is going to puke mud and rock all over us, it’s going to do it. But I doubt it will,” said Tom Wilson, who has lived in his hillside home for 16 years below the vacant homes--and the boulder.

Still, preparations have been made.

Sandbags are piled thigh deep in low spots, or laced with care along the sides of plunging back roads. Approximately 24 tons of sand has been picked up by residents from local firehouses.

A massive volunteer project spearheaded last fall by local activist Sherry Meddick cleared the creek beds so water could rush freely off the mountain flanks and into riverbeds.

Fire Capt. Childress said he and his crew will undoubtedly be “picking someone up after the fact” on Santiago Canyon Road, which snakes through the lower hills.

That’s because hundreds, sometimes thousands, of commuters use the picturesque, winding road like a freeway during rush hours, and rain rarely slows them.

But mud might. Brush fires scorched portions of the hills near Black Star Canyon and Irvine Lake last year, and mud and rock might cascade down the bare slopes, he said.

And there is that rock. County public works personnel sent a geologist to survey the rock in recent weeks, a process that left a faint trail of pink paint.

There is talk in the canyon that the government might put in a ditch, a concrete barrier and a chain-link fence to try to protect the homes below.

“They’ll build it this summer, then it’ll sit unused for 50 years.” Wilson said. “Or who knows, maybe tonight’ll be heavy downpours.”

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Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this report.