Anaheim Hills Slide Risk Shuts Boulevard

A saturated Anaheim Hills slope continued to slide Tuesday, imperiling another house and prompting Caltrans to close nearby Santiago Boulevard for emergency repairs.

Caltrans-hired contractors have been working around the clock drilling two horizontal drainage pipes 300 feet into the hillside.

The agency, which owns the slope along Santiago Boulevard below East Circle Haven Road, hopes the drains will stop the slope from crumbling onto Santiago Boulevard.

That road was closed Friday between Nohl Ranch Road and Nohl Canyon Road. It will not reopen until the end of the month when emergency repairs are finished, said Pam Gorniak, spokeswoman for Caltrans.

The repairs will cost Caltrans $500,000.

Workers are tending the same slope that last week threatened four homes on East Circle Haven and Maple Tree roads.

Two of those homes have since been declared uninhabitable by city officials, two remain yellow-tagged, and a fifth home was similarly tagged Tuesday. Yellow tags mean homeowners may enter during the day but not stay overnight.

Caltrans geologists have been monitoring the slope below one of the red-tagged homes on East Circle Haven for more than two weeks after the owner reported large cracks in his backyard.

The homes, near where the Costa Mesa and Riverside freeways meet, are within a quarter-mile of another Caltrans-owned slope that slid in 1998 while the agency was stabilizing the hillside.