Residents, Cities Are Still Fighting Over Year-Ago Floods, Mudslides

After a year of hardship and loss from the ferocious flooding and landslides of an El Nino winter, some Orange County residents and cities are digging in to fight long-lingering battles over who can or should pay for the damage and suffering.

In Laguna Beach, the relatives of a man killed by a blast of mud moments after he helped rescue several others filed a lawsuit this week, blaming the city for his death.

In neighboring Laguna Niguel, a pair of families left homeless by a landslide believe they have fallen through the cracks of the law and the emergency aid system, and they are asking reluctant city officials to accept a first-of-its-kind federal buyout offer to purchase their wrecked homes.

Orange County residences and businesses suffered more than $50 million in damage from last winter’s storms, part of more than $550 million in damages statewide, according to county and state officials.

In the aftermath, dozens of claims were filed against cities and the county by people who charged that public negligence was a part of the problem. Claims were filed for incidents ranging from cars torn up by uncovered manholes to house damage and personal injury.

Laguna Beach City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said his city alone had about 50 such claims filed against it. It settled about 10 claims and faces possible lawsuits over five others, he said. Most of the other claims have been rejected by the city. It has paid out less than $200,000 so far.

In neighboring Laguna Niguel, a newer community, there were fewer than a dozen claims alleging that the city was responsible for flood or mud damage. Several homeowners filed claims for carpet damage, and some motorists filed claims for damage done after manhole covers popped off storm sewers, said Pamela Lawrence, administrative services director. Most of the claims have been rejected, she said.

Lawsuits against public agencies are expected to become more frequent, Frank said, because the deadline for filing them is running out. Under state law, a claim against a public agency for damages or injury must be filed within six months of the occurrence. After the agency rejects the claim, he said, a lawsuit must be filed within six months.

In the lawsuit filed this week in Orange County Superior Court, the family of Glenn Flook, 25, charges that “he died for want of adequate response” by Laguna Beach rescuers during last year’s devastating mudslides.

“They could have prepared their people better and they could have responded better,” said Nick O’Malley, a Santa Ana attorney for Flook’s parents and brother in England. “The city showed a lack of capacity to respond and a lack of capacity to train.”

Frank said the claim that the city failed in training or its response is “totally groundless.”

“The claim has absolutely no possibility of being successful,” he said.

Flook died Feb. 24 after a house in which he had sought shelter collapsed under the weight of the mudslide. Earlier, witnesses said, the young man had acted heroically in helping several neighbors endangered by the mud.

A number of homeowners stranded by mud that night had called for emergency vehicles, according to the lawsuit. They were assured that an adequate number of emergency vehicles had been dispatched when, “in fact,” the lawsuit contends, “few, if any, vehicles and personnel had been so dispatched. Personnel were inadequately trained.”

The lawsuit asks for at least $500,000 in damages for the family’s loss of “care, comfort, companionship, society, support and maintenance” because of Flook’s death.

O’Malley also filed a separate lawsuit on behalf of a couple injured in the mudslide.

In Laguna Niguel, on the same night Flook was killed, two families lost their homes in a landslide. Now, they have publicly appealed to city officials to accept a 4-month-old federal buyout offer.

But city officials said they still are wary of the Federal Emergency Management Agency offer to purchase two houses on Vista Plaza Drive and turn the land over to the city.

The Muzio and Sarfeh families, both longtime residents, told the Laguna Niguel City Council on Tuesday that without the buyout they would pay off their mortgages and abandon the properties, leaving the doomed houses behind.

“We would love to have a resolution so we can get on with our lives, and so the neighbors can get on with their lives too,” said Diana Muzio, who owns one of two condemned houses off Crown Valley Parkway.

Tearfully urging approval of the buyout offer, neighbor Sharon Sarfeh said: “It’s the only option for us to be able to salvage our lives and move on.”

Council members met later Tuesday in closed session to discuss the issue, but made no decision. The city is concerned about the risks of owning an unstable slope.

FEMA last November offered California landslide victims $22 million, including $462,475 for the Vista Plaza landslide and $5.6 million for the more publicized landslide at Via Estoril, where developers have agreed to offer buyouts of their own involving 50 houses and condominium units.