Officials Pessimistic About La Conchita

As the search for victims of the La Conchita mudslide abruptly ended Thursday because of dangerous shifting ground, top Ventura County officials expressed grave doubts about whether the town could ever be made safe for residents and said taxpayers should not foot the potentially enormous bill.

Implicitly contradicting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who during a visit Wednesday encouraged residents to return, the officials said that efforts to shore up the slumping hillside could cost more than $150 million and even then might not work.

“It’s not fair to put the burden on the county taxpayers,” said county Supervisor Judy Mikels. “I don’t think that hillside can ever be made safe, frankly. If the mountain decides to go, nothing we can do will hold it back.”

Kathy Long, the chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, said she was frustrated by Schwarzenegger’s vows to help residents return to their homes after Monday’s mudslide, which killed 10 residents and damaged or destroyed 31 dwellings.

“He talked about letting them return to the community, but I didn’t hear him use the words ‘safe return,’ ” Long said. “Making that community safe is not doable within the means of the county. But if the governor and the federal government have the wherewithal to assist, we will explore all options.”

Some residents have been clamoring to return to the small beachside town near the border of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and about 18 have continued to live in their homes despite what police and geologists say are dangerous conditions.

Sheriff Bob Brooks said that although he cannot legally prevent people from moving back if their homes are intact, “we do not recommend that people return to this area or that the people who stay here remain here.”

In a sign of the mudslide’s destructiveness, the earth that buried the homes might never be moved, Brooks said.

Authorities estimated that 400,000 tons of mud fell on the community and that another 1.3 million tons remained on the unstable hillside.

A part of the massive mudslide shifted 6 feet early Thursday morning, and officials noticed water pooling around the slide zone -- possible precursors to another slide.

Authorities believe that they have recovered all of the missing people but decided that it was too dangerous to continue looking.

Despite the warnings, at least some residents said they were eager to return to La Conchita as soon as the hill stops moving.

“I’ll go back once they get the power turned on,” said Allen Blackwell, 67, who lives on the property his parents bought in 1952. “But not right now, there’s too much water and unstable soil.... It’s the only place I’ve ever been. It’s my home.”

La Conchita, a hamlet set into the side of a shrub-covered hill, has seen two major mudslides in the last decade. In 1995, an avalanche destroyed nine homes, but no one was killed.

Geologists who have studied the area believe that more than a dozen slides have occurred on the slopes above La Conchita since it was settled in 1850.

Rescuers, who had been chipping away at the giant pile of mud and rubble since Monday afternoon, walked down from the pile in orderly rows about 8:25 a.m. because of the earth movement.

About 11 a.m., the 500 workers returned to hold a memorial service in the area where they had found the 10 dead bodies, forming a sea of yellow and orange rain jackets and overalls.

They stood with helmets off and heads bowed, as incident commanders praised the crews’ heroic efforts, saying that their work had saved lives. Some knelt on one knee; some wept during moments of silence.

Then they walked down to U.S. Highway 101 and started returning to their home bases across Southern California.

Officials said they planned to fence the area and were still trying to determine how long it would be before residents could return.

They said that under the law, once the hill stabilizes, residents whose homes are not red-tagged can return -- perhaps as early as today.

On Thursday, no one who had evacuated was allowed back into town, much to the chagrin of Ross “Skip” Cullins, 31, who has lived in La Conchita since 1996.

Cullins stood outside the yellow tape Thursday and pledged to return to his house, which was not damaged.

“Hopefully our superhuman governor can stabilize the entire hillside for our community,” he said.

During his visit Wednesday, the governor spoke to town residents and said he would “do everything that we can to make it a safe area.”

One man who had stayed in his house since the mudslide Monday said he would only leave “toes up.”

Mike Bell, 57, has been using his generator and eating the food in neighbors’ refrigerators. Bell said neighbors have been calling him to tell him to eat the food in their homes before it spoils. Wednesday night, he and the other residents who remained ate scallops, teriyaki salmon and crab salad.

At a special meeting about the mudslide Thursday, county supervisors tried to balance their responsibility to protect public safety with the passionate desire of La Conchita residents to return to their town.

Supervisor John Flynn said he was wrestling with the “morality of allowing people to get back into an area when you yourself would not go there.”

Supervisor Linda Parks said she too wanted to know more about what, if anything, the county could do to prevent residents from returning at all.

Tom Berg, manager of the county’s Resource Management Agency, said a $1.5-million geologic study performed after the 1995 slide estimated that it would cost up to $150 million to stabilize the hillside. Engineers looked at such options as terracing the slopes, installing a drainage system and building retaining walls.

But even with costly fixes, the county would not be able to guarantee residents’ safety, Berg said. “From the county’s point of view, every home is at risk,” he said.

The supervisors will meet again this morning to review those concerns and vote on recommendations on how the residents can return to the ravaged community in an orderly way. Those recommendations may include protocols for evacuating the community should heavy weather return.

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Times staff writer Fred Alvarez and photographer Spencer Weiner contributed to this report.