Parents’ 15 minutes of terrifying fame

CATHARINE COOPER

The scream of sirens jolts me from my meditation, followed by the

roar of acceleration as police cars race past the house, their

undercarriages smashing the tops of speed bumps. Down the hill, I

hear more sirens -- fire trucks and ambulances, until I am sure that

every city emergency vehicle has converged in one location.

I can see nothing from the window. No smoke. No flames. I pick up

the phone to call mom. We always check on each other during

emergencies, but she doesn’t answer. It’s too early for golf. Maybe

she’s in the shower.

Out the window, I see a brigade of helicopters as they sweep in

from Los Angeles. Knowing they will expose what I cannot see, I turn

on the television. I hear the words before the picture. Landslide.

Homes. Injured. The first image on the screen is my mom and dad’s

house surrounded by a mountain of displaced earth. Wait. My mom and

dad’s house! The mind processes the picture as the feet run for car

keys and the door.

Streets are barricaded. Traffic is snarled, confused. I park my

car a short distance from the barricades and begin to run, down

Bluebird, past the park and up the hill. Police and fireman raise

their hands, but I keep running. I keep running until I see them,

hand in hand, dusted with dirt, slowly making their way to safety. We

clutch one another, sobbing.

A normal morning, my dad had gone to get the paper at the top of

their easement from Madison. They had just sat down to a breakfast of

cereal and bananas when mom began to hear strange noises.

At first, she thought it might be a deer, oddly scratching on the

front porch. Then she thought that somehow some animal had been

trapped inside the broom closet. Dad got up and slowly opened the

front door. He looked at her, told her to get up -- that they had to

get out of the house.

They stepped across the threshold and watched the house slip

several feet from the porch. They stepped off the porch onto the

concrete steps that led toward the driveway, and watched the porch

slip away from the steps. They screamed at their neighbor to get out

-- that the houses were moving. Around them, garages cascaded down

from the hillside, windows exploded in showers of glass. The driveway

in front of them buckled, folded and vanished in fissures that

appeared in the earth.

They stood alone on what remained of their concrete stairway, a

tiny dark grey island surrounded by devastation. Above them, the

sheer face of a newly formed cliff, the top of which had formerly

been their driveway. Beside and below them, more broken earth, strewn

concrete culverts, and their house, broken into two pieces. The

crackling of electrical wires mingled with the groan and tear of

structures ripping apart.

For 45 minutes they stood, waiting to be found. Officer Bob Van

Gorder and Battalion Chief Jeff LaTendresse finally heard their cries

of “help” and “over here.” Together, the two men carried or assisted

my parents over and through the rubble and mountainous piles of

heaved earth to the relative safety of Oriole Drive.

Behind them, my parents’ home at 1044 Flamingo Road rested

uncomfortably about 100 feet lower than when dad went to get the

morning paper, and 80 feet to the south. Surprisingly, they had

ridden the entire slide while spooning cereal and contemplating the

day’s chores.

Smack dab in the middle of the two sheer walls, the earth beneath

their house slid gently on a slippery bed of moist clay. The olive

tree outside the kitchen window traveled with them, a constant in

their view. The crystal in the cabinets never budged.

My parents are physically unscathed, and emotionally holding

together, which is all that really matters. The process of recreating

a life is not easy for anyone, and certainly unplanned by them at 78

and 86. Disaster wears a different face when you are the one in its

grasp.

Mom spoke of filling the bird feeders and watering the rose on the

porch, the one that carries the ashes of her father and his wife.

When you live in one house for 39 years, there is a sense of roots, a

knowing of place and neighbors. The olive tree, the avocado, the

tomatoes and the flowers in earth you have worked with your hands for

those long years. A particular morning view with one’s coffee that

satisfies the senses.

While (gratefully) the helicopters have grown infrequent, the

swell of support for all those affected has been momentous. Laguna’s

community and infrastructure -- the police, fire, building department

and staff have provided tremendous support, compassion and

understanding. Words are inadequate to express the gratitude I feel

toward all who have offered help and assistance. Simply know, my

heart thanks you a thousand times each day.

* Catharine Cooper’s parents,

Kay & Lewie Wright, have been Laguna residents for more than

50 years. She can be reached at (949) 497- 5081 or

ccoopercooperdesign.net.