FEMA just plain wrong

Now that the nation’s attention is gripped by a disaster of epic

proportions in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast -- devastated by a

monster hurricane that may have killed hundreds -- Laguna’s June 1

landslide may look like small potatoes.

But the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s decision last week

to reject disaster assistance based on the 100-year rains of last

winter is still a colossal mistake.

State and federal geologists made their findings clear shortly

after the slide: Rainfall that soaked the area in the first part of

the year -- for which two official disaster declarations were made --

had seeped far down into the ground, collected there, and caused a

100-foot-deep earth movement that made the hillside collapse some

four months later.

In fact, five Bluebird Canyon homes were evacuated in late

February in the Morningside area, after a week of intense rain. This

was probably a precursor to the Flamingo Drive incident that claimed

15 homes and caused the entire canyon to be evacuated.

The connection between rainfall and landslides is abundantly

clear. The El Nino events of the late 1990s resulted in landslides up

and down the state -- and here in Laguna.

Water acts as a lubricant, allowing boulders to slip and earth to

move. Heavy rains can also activate underground rivers that no one is

aware of. Clearly, something like that happened in Bluebird Canyon on

June 1.

How the FEMA officials could ignore their own geologists and

common sense is a mystery.

Laguna was ever so lucky that no lives were lost that day, and

that residents were able to walk out after their homes slid down with

the hillside.

Now, there is much work to do to make the area safe -- not just

for those whose properties were destroyed, but for the hundreds who

live farther up the canyon and need safe passage to and from their

homes.

City officials estimate it will cost $7 million just to get the

hillside in shape to last through the coming rainy season. The

stabilization work “is not optional,” as City Manager Ken Frank says.

City officials were apparently expecting only $1 million from FEMA

to put that emergency plan into effect. But down the road, the money

would have helped finance repairs to the infrastructure to make the

victims whole again and make the area safer for all. The loss of that

money will hurt many city projects and programs. It will have to come

from somewhere.

The agency’s refusal to listen to the experts has put the city --

and the victims -- in a real financial jam and has put a wrinkle in

the city’s ability to get money from the state Office of Emergency

Services, which wants to help.

Both the state and the city are appealing the decision.

FEMA should do the right thing and open its purse strings to help

out -- even if Laguna’s disaster has gone off the national radar.