First house to go

Barbara Diamond

A salvage crew unearthed Joan Power’s purse Monday. Next came a lamp

dear to Robert Powers’ heart.

The Powers -- he is 71, she is 70 -- watched as the crew ripped

off the roof of their Bluebird Canyon Drive home and began to

retrieve some of the couple’s belongings, which they had not seen

since the June 1 landslide.

“We got most of the stuff out of the top level of the house,”

Robert Power said. “There was very little broken -- just some of the

art glass.”

Two lower levels of the home, which include his office and tax

data for his clients, were buried by the slide. His wallet is down

there someplace in the dirt.

“The middle level is floor-to-ceiling dirt,” Power said. “[The

sliding dirt] blew out the walls on that level, but it held the top

floor up.”

The Powers had lived in the home for 35 years and remodeled it

only last year.

“I’ve walked away from so many things in my life, I wasn’t

bothered by the demolition,” said Power, a cancer survivor.

The Powers’ home was the first of a probable 14 slide-ravaged homes -- Mayor Elizabeth Pearson calls them 11 destroyed and three

critically wounded -- to be demolished.

The Powers chose not to wait for an area-wide project on which

city recovery coordinator Bob Burnham is working.

“If you know my husband -- ‘Get it Done Bob,’” said Joan Power,

with a laugh. “He was an art student and he cared most about that --

well maybe after our cat.”

When the Powers fled their home the morning of the slide, he was

wearing a kimono. She was in a robe. They have not been allowed back

in the home -- much too dangerous.

The only way they could gain access to their belongings was to

take off the roof and demolish the home in layers.

A retired nurse, Joan Power has dealt with the disaster with

aplomb equal to her husband’s.

They plan to rebuild.

“People outside of the city are saying that Laguna should not

rebuild in a known, dangerous area,” Bluebird Canyon homeowner Marcus

Noble said. “We agree. But that is not what we are trying to

achieve.”

Bluebird Canyon is not like Florida, Noble said, which gets

federal aid to rebuild homes ripped apart by hurricanes that hit the

state year after year; or like Tornado Alley in the Midwest or the

states periodically inundated by the flooding Mississippi. Those

disasters will reoccur.

“We are trying to build a stable hill that will never fail again,”

Noble said. “No one in a red-tagged home wants to rebuild on unstable

land.”

Once restored, the slide area will be one of the safest hillside

neighborhoods, as the reconstructed area of 1978 slide is reported to

be.

Rebuilding homes on stable land is the goal, but it is the last

stage in the restoration process.

Burnham is working on an agreement between a contractor and the

city for the demolition of the remaining homes that must be razed.

“The city would agree to let [the contractor] remove belongings if

the property owners give the city the right to demolish and remove

the homes and go after the insurance companies,” Burnham said.

A joint project would be cheaper and quicker than individual

demolitions, according to Burnham. The plans would be available for

the homeowners’ consultants to review.

“If we don’t get the hill shored up before the rains, there is no

point in doing it,” Burnham said.

The city has hired an interim engineering company to “winterize”

the slope and restore drainage through the canyon, to be confirmed by

the council.

“Winterization” is contingent on demolishing and removing the

destroyed homes, Burnham told the displaced families Monday at their

weekly meeting at the Neighborhood Congregational Church.

“The city manager has said we are going to restore Flamingo come

hell or high water,” Burnham said.

High water is, in fact, one of the major issues in the restoration

of the hillside. The natural water course through Bluebird Canyon is

now dammed by 60 to 80 feet of soil that must be excavated, even for

an interim fix.

“The concept is to put in steel plates, 50 feet high,” said

Burnham, who walked the site Sunday with three engineers. “The

strongest plate on the slope side would hold up the slope and we

could excavate between the two plates. The plates and the soil will

serve as a buttress.

“The engineers that went out there will draft plans for interim

drainage.”

“Winterizing” is a bandage -- the cure won’t begin until next

summer, geologist Hannes Richter said.

“We will regrade this fall and minimize the infiltration,” Richter

said. “But that is not the ultimate fix.”

The rupture is 80 feet deep, Richter said. That is below the

canyon floor. It goes down and then back up again, he said.

“That is a lot of dirt to move,” Richter said. “It’s a six-month

process.”

The city’s most immediate priority is tying the slide to the first

presidential disaster declaration, 1577, which provides for public

and private federal assistance for damages in the early winter

storms.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced recently that

federal assistance will not be forthcoming for private property

covered by a later declaration, 1585.

“If FEMA accepts the link to the first disaster declaration, the

second won’t count,” Burnham said. “We have contacted every

politician we can.”

The City Council will hold a special meeting at 4 p.m., Monday to

review slide measures taken or considered by the city and FEMA’s

position.

“I encourage all of you to attend,” Burnham told the displaced

families. “It is important for the council to see the faces impacted

by this disaster.”

However, he advised limiting testimony to the group’s Steering

Committee Chair Steve Huberty and Government Committee Chair Todd

McCallum.

Politicians, Burnham said, are impressed with organization.

The families began organizing shortly after the slide. Six

committees were established and are taking action, with the advice of

1978 Bluebird Canyon slide hero Dale Ghere, documented by Liza

Stewart, who owns property in the afflicted area.

They have a website for themselves and another for the public and

are producing a weekly newsletter and keeping in contact with media.

“If you stay together, I think things will be fine,” Burnham said.