Newport Beach offers help

Marisa O’Neil

After a massive landslide Wednesday destroyed more than a dozen homes

and displaced hundreds of Laguna Beach residents, Newport Beach

businesses were among those pitching in to help.

As many as 18 homes were destroyed in the Bluebird Canyon area of

south Laguna Beach and more than 350 homes were evacuated following

the Wednesday morning slide.

When news reached Newport Beach, City Council member Steve

Rosansky knew the city would want to help.

“It’s what neighbors do,” he said.

Rosansky called Marta Hayden, executive director of the Newport

Beach Conference and Visitors Bureau, who then called her Laguna

Beach counterpart to offer assistance.

“She said, ‘I need rooms. I need temporary accommodations for

residents,’” Hayden said.

Hayden put her employees to work, rounding up any available hotel

rooms or housing for those displaced by the landslide.

Residents may need to stay away from their homes for two or three

days, Hayden said.

By early Wednesday afternoon, some 300 rooms, suites and corporate

apartments were offered up at discounted rates by the Marriott,

Newport Dunes and more, Hayden said.

“It’s a tragic event,” she said of the landslide. “It’s

devastating to everybody.”

Newport Beach provides mutual aid to neighboring cities for

services like fire and police assistance.

But Laguna Beach did not request assistance Wednesday to handle

the slide, which happened in the southern part of the city, Newport

Beach fire spokeswoman Jennifer Schulz said.

No serious injuries were reported in the slide. Officials

initially are blaming the rainy winter for loosening the soil and

causing the slide.

Though Newport Beach neighbors Laguna Beach, the local geography

is different enough to make a large-scale slide unlikely here,

building department director Jay Elbettar said.

Still, landslides are notoriously unpredictable, he said.

“Laguna [Beach] has much steeper hills and higher grades,” he

said. “But I don’t think people expected it to happen.”

Some areas -- like around Newport Coast, Cliff Drive and bluffs

overlooking the Back Bay -- have had slides in the past, he said.

The slopes aren’t as steep, however, as those in Laguna Beach, he

said.

Newport Beach’s planning department works with builders to reduce

risks when building cliff-top homes, he said. Building deep

foundations that reach into bedrock is one way to stabilize such

buildings.

In the case of the Laguna Beach slide, he said, it would have been

too difficult to build deep enough to keep those homes stable.