12 homes evacuated in Southern California city after ground shifts
Officials said twelve homes were evacuated in a Los Angeles-area city Saturday night after a major ground change put them at risk of collapse.
REAL ESTATE ROLLING HILLS, Calif. — Twelve homes were evacuated in a Los Angeles-area city after a major ground change put them at risk of collapsing, officials said Sunday.
Janice Hahn, president of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, visited Rolling Hills Estates, a city 19 miles (30 km) south of Los Angeles on Saturday night while the ground was moving. She said she had “never seen anything like” the damage done.
“You know, when you think these houses are intact, yesterday afternoon, and today you can hear the creaking, the cracking, the crumbling,” Hahn said Sunday. “They’re about to fall.”
Hahn said the evacuees ran the risk of falling into a nearby canyon “sooner or later”.
Pete Goodrich, a building official with Rolling Hills Estates, said that in addition to those being evacuated, some homes had turned off gas to try to prevent accidents from happening.
Goodrich said officials still don’t know what may have caused the ground to shift.
The evacuations come after landslides halted rail service in San Clemente, another Southern California city, earlier this year.
