Angela Schuetz and her husband were watching the end of the president’s State of the Union address inside their Mount Soledad home Monday night when they were startled by the sound of gushing water.
“We heard all the rushing water,” Schuetz said.
Theirs was one of two homes told to evacuate around 8 p.m., when their back yards slid down the hillside.
“I ran to the back and saw our shed had moved, and there was gushing water,” Schuetz said.
She said they also had an old chicken coop ” empty from a previous raccoon attack ” that had moved down the hillside. Several neighbors’ yards were also affected by the slide.
Around 8 p.m., fire department and city personnel evacuated Schuetz and her neighbors on the 7700 block of Sierra Del Mar, and on the 1700 block of Soledad Avenue, but Schuetz’s husband refused to leave.
“We knew our house would be OK,” Schuetz said.
She left anyway, going to a friend’s house while her husband stayed, she said. But Schietz shares the edge of her backyard with her neighbors, who may not have fared as well.
The slide on Sierra Del Mar, where the Schuetz residence is located, shares property lines with homes on the 1700 block of Soledad Avenue. But some residents on Soledad Avenue said they were “reluctant to talk” and “craved privacy.”
The Oct. 3 landslide on the other side of Mount Soledad resulted in property loss and, according to attorneys representing the homeowners, loss of home value. While that slide occurred on city property, this slide, officials said, is on private property. Homeowners affected by the October landslide are suing the city because of a series of events leading up to the slide, including water main and other leaks that they claim caused the slide.
“What I understand was that the initial reports said that it was the pipes from the homeowner’s backyard,” said Arian Collins, spokesman for the City of San Diego Water Department.
According to a Jan. 29 press release from the office of Mayor Jerry Sanders titled “City Water, Storm Drain Systems Not Involved in Mudslide Last Night,” in which the mayor’s office distances itself from this latest slide and the “ancient landslide site on Soledad Mountain Road that reactivated last October,” the office says city geologists named this a “debris flow.”
Sanders said soil in the area was saturated from heavy rains. Eventually, mud slid down the hill, encroaching in others’ yards, breaking sprinklers and spraying water. When fire department personnel arrived, they shut off the water until homeowners located the shut-off valve for their sprinklers, the press release stated. There was minimal damage done to homes, save the mess from the mud.
It’s always possible that something will change once someone begins the investigation, Collins said.
