Families Wait as Laguna Beach Drills for Landslide Answers

Drilling a 5-inch-diameter hole through sandy soil, geologists on Wednesday began determining the immediate fate of 24 families who remain locked out of their homes, caught on the fringe of last week’s Laguna Beach landslide.

The grinding of a contractor’s drill accompanied the lowering of 100 feet of rusted steel pipe through an upheaved asphalt road in Bluebird Canyon. The daylong drilling will allow geologists to confirm whether the earth has stabilized since the June 1 slide, which destroyed or severely damaged 15 homes and made dozens of others temporarily uninhabitable.

The two dozen families immediately adjacent to the landslide hope to learn Monday when -- if ever -- they can return home. To that end, the canyon will be punctured with six holes, down which white, plastic-sheathed probes called inclinometers will be lowered to alert engineers if the earth shifts even one-third of an inch.

Unless the earth moves substantially, 18 yellow-tagged houses will be cleared for reentry beginning Monday, said Bob Burnham, a consultant hired by the city to coordinate the recovery effort. Six other houses, depending on the probes’ findings, could be cleared for occupancy within two weeks.

City officials and geologists will update homeowners Friday.

Also on Wednesday, the governor’s Office of Emergency Services asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to offer grants and low-interest loans to slide victims. The state concluded that the landslide was linked to winter storms that lashed Orange and seven other California counties, and qualified to be included in an existing disaster declaration, said Greg Renick, information officer.

Among those residents waiting for news are Terry and Tricia McInnis, whose home was unscathed even though a house two lots away was ripped in half. Since last week, they have been staying with friends.

“There is some [reluctance] to go back, knowing the slide is right there,” said Terry McInnis, a civil lawyer who has returned to work in Irvine. “But if the city is confident the slide has stopped, then we’ll go.”

Engineers will use inclinometers to measure the tilt of the drill borings, then check them daily over the coming weeks for changes. Before the probes were installed, engineers used core samples and maps to estimate the landslide area, said Simon Cornwallis, operations manager for Durham Geo Slope Indicator, the Georgia company that sold the instruments to the city.

The instruments are placed deep enough to reach stable earth beneath the slide. The probes detect shifts in the borings’ locations by traveling through the plastic casings, taking measurements every 2 feet of the slope’s incline on two perpendicular axes. The readings are plotted by a computer to show slope changes over time.