Uphill Struggle

Dan Alvis doesn’t need an anniversary to remind him of the day a collapsing mountain flattened his home.

All he needs to do is look out the window to remember the moment, three years ago today, when more than 600,000 tons of rock and mud came roaring down, destroying the spacious home he had spent more than a year building.

“I still get kind of choked up when I look over there,” he said, motioning toward the three-story home he never got a chance to finish. “I had some great stuff in there.”

Three years ago, after more than a week of intermittent yet drenching storms, a quarter-mile section of the hill that towers over La Conchita gave way, loosing a mountain of mud that destroyed nine homes, damaged five others and changed this sleepy seaside community forever.

Alvis--who now owns another home nearby--was standing on his balcony that day, watching little slides pour over the cliffs like spilled salt when the hill suddenly convulsed and sent a wall of gritty mud and pumpkin-sized boulders down toward his home on Rincon del Mar.

He had just enough time to grab his parrot and flee before the slide slammed into a neighbor’s house, sending it crashing down onto his home in an explosion of splintered wood, household appliances and furniture.

“It was pretty awesome . . . I think all of us were happy that it happened during the day or else things could have been a lot worse,” he said.

Very little has visibly changed in La Conchita, a coastal hamlet of several thousand staunchly independent and free-spirited folks, many of whom have called it home for decades.

The hillside, now flush with yellow mustard and green sagebrush, is still scarred by deep fissures and crater-like depressions that continue to dump tons of mud on the community’s narrow streets during every storm.

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California Department of Transportation crews have been working for the last eight days to clear mud from a culvert that funnels water from the community to the ocean.

Three homes, including Alvis’, remain behind flimsy chain-link fences as a frightening reminder of that day’s fury and some roads are still covered with 20 feet of gravelly effluvia.

“You look around here and it seems like it happened yesterday,” said Alvis’ brother Tony, who recently bought a home across the street from his brother’s crushed house. “If this happened somewhere else like Malibu or Rincon, it wouldn’t look like this.”

For many residents, bitterness toward the county, the federal government and even each other has followed in wake of the 1995 slide.

People like the Alvis brothers complain that the county has been far too slow to remove the mud from streets.

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Others fume at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s failure to help them get back on their feet. And a class-action lawsuit filed by 112 property owners against the neighboring La Conchita Ranch Co. has caused animosity among many residents whose properties were devalued by the slide.

“It’s not peaceful and serene like it used to be,” said 82-year-old Genevieve Connors. “It used to be a paradise around here and now, well, let’s just say it’s a place to live.”

According to Supervisor Kathy Long, the reason La Conchita has languished for so long is because a geologic study must be done on the slide area before any of the destroyed homes can be torn down and the streets cleared.

The county has pressured FEMA to fund the $450,000 study, but the agency has been reluctant, saying that its role is to offer emergency aid, not help rebuild.

“My common sense tells me that it’s better to be proactive and take care of this now instead of being reactive and trying to find people buried in their homes,” Long said. “The situation in La Conchita needs to be fixed.”

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Rifts between residents also opened up after a group of property owners won a lawsuit filed against neighboring La Conchita Ranch Co., which operates an avocado and lemon farm on the hills above.

After the slide, many homeowners pointed fingers at the ranch, contending that extensive irrigation had weakened the hill, causing it to tumble down.

The ranch settled with the home owners in June for an unspecified amount. But other residents, who have suffered plunging property values, were left with no compensation.

“It used to be kind of like a family here, but now there are a lot of hard feelings,” Connors said. “There are people who won’t talk to each other because of the whole thing.”

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Since then, a second suit--dismissed last month--was filed by a number of residents who were left out the first settlement.

Last week, however, Supervisor Long directed county staff to begin drafting a public-nuisance complaint against the ranch, claiming that continued irrigation poses a significant threat to La Conchita residents.

While it remains uncertain when La Conchita will finally be able to mend its wounds, residents said it would take much more than a million tons of dirt and miles of bureaucratic red tape to drive them away.

“We’ve got a view of the islands, gorgeous sunsets and we’re a long way away from the city,” said Tony Alvis, a 37-year resident. “Even with all that’s happened, it’s still paradise.”