When Mount Soledad Road re-slid onto Desert View Drive Thursday, Jan. 17, it not only increased the size of the original hole, but according to the homeowners’ representatives, it also put the City of San Diego in a defensive posture.
“Forget about the first [October] slide for a minute,” said Patrick E. Catalano, the attorney representing homeowners affected by the landslide. “We believe we can prove the [cause of the] first slide. The second slide is totally the city’s fault. It happened when the city was undertaking inappropriate repairs.”
Catalano represents 22 homeowners affected by the Oct. 3 landslide, which resulted in about 20 homes being damaged. Some damaged homes were eventually razed, and some were left “red-tagged,” meaning they were either too dangerous or damaged to enter. Of the four homes impacted from the second slide, Catalano represents one homeowner.
He said “it’s Engineering 101” to not remove dirt from the toe of a landslide. Any kid will tell you that, he said. Just go to the beach and watch them build a sandcastle. Take sand from the bottom and it all caves in, he said.
But after the Oct. 3 landslide, a judge ruled the city needed to cooperate with representatives for the homeowners, including giving them access to observe progress and repairs done to the landslide.
According to Catalano, that did not happen. The city didn’t give American Geotechnical, Inc. ” the expert geological consultants for three attorneys and many homeowners ” any of its plans for the slide’s stabilization. Also, a forensics investigation, which began with the water lines, was supposed to pick up again Monday with the sewer lines.
Catalano said when experts arrived, a key piece of evidence was missing.
The fire hydrant that was prominent in City Attorney Mike Aguirre’s report, which was leaking for so long before the landslide, was now missing, Catalano said.
Aguirre issued a “23rd Interim Report” shortly after the October landslide. Using nearly 3,000 pages of documents that Mayor Jerry Sanders released, Aguirre narrated a timeline of events leading up to the landslide. He documented residents’ complaints about leaking waterlines, including a fire hydrant, which Catalano said is an important part of his case, as it may be a factor in causing the slide.
Now Catalano and experts said the forensics investigation has stalled again, and the newest slide has re-damaged at least four homes. One home, which could have been salvaged before the second slide, is now lost, he said.
“The story’s continuing,” said Kevin Rogers, an expert geologist with American Geotechnical, Inc. hired by the homeowners. “It’s at risk of additional movement.”
Rogers and other experts from American Geotechnical and the city waded through the new slide area, which surveyors described as being about 3 to 5 feet vertically and 14 feet horizontally, to get a handle on the situation.
At about 3:30 p.m. witnesses said the area, which was part of the original slide plane, began to move slowly onto Desert View Drive from above, essentially widening the original hole. After they realized the ground slid again, crews rushed tons of dirt up to fill the toe of the slide plane to stop the sliding.
Steve Borron, geologist with American Geotechnical, Inc., and other geologists agree the new slide was caused by grading done to the toe or bottom of the slide, similar to taking an orange from the bottom of a pile at the grocery store, causing the stack to collapse. But experts from the city disagree about the level of responsibility regarding the incident.
“They [city crews] were doing removals on the toe down there at the bottom,” Borron said. “In our opinion, you never do that before fixing it.”
Rob Hawk, a city geologist, said that this is a “catastrophic” slide, where any movement could happen.
Borron said there are many options to fix or stabilize the toe of the plane, even temporarily. It is “standard stuff,” Borron said, to put in shorings before grading or removing dirt at the toe.
“The city should’ve known better,” Borron said. “We never touch the toe of a slide.”
While geologists from American Geotechnical said the city is at fault for “playing the odds” because they skipped a step in the process by not stabilizing the toe of the slide before grading the dirt, Hawk said the grading of the dirt was itself part of the stabilization.
Hawk exited a trailer at the top of Soledad Mountain early Friday morning fresh from a strategy meeting that included city workers, public information officers and other key players from the city. Hawk said the city’s position that it knew this could happen, that no new homes were damaged and that city officials are moving forward, adding that he thinks crews are “still on track.”
But according to Borron, as loose as the ground is at the toe, it should have been “a piece of cake” to consider different options to temporarily stabilize the toe, including pounding steel pilings into the ground. Crews shouldn’t have just started moving dirt, he said. The crews had no problem stabilizing the top of the slide plane where they put in many caissons, Borron said.
“We didn’t damage any homes that weren’t already damaged,” Hawk said. “We just re-crushed the house that was already crushed.”
Hawk calls the new slide an “ingrading failure” that is part of the original Oct. 3 landslide at the 5700 block of Soledad Mountain Road and the alley of Desert View Drive.
“It gives us the opportunity to analyze more data now,” Hawk said. “We haven’t suffered any new damage.”
Crews demolished three homes on Soledad Mountain Road weeks ago, leaving a fourth as they worked to restore the roads. The city continues to stabilize the slope in anticipation of the upcoming rains.