Still recovering

Jim Moore would like to forget the day he saw the Bluebird Canyon home he shared with John Gustafson crushed by the tumbling hillside above their property.

“You can only cry so long.” Moore said.

Today marks the second anniversary of the devastating landslide that displaced families from homes that were damaged, destroyed or threatened. More than 1,000 people were evacuated, fortunately with no loss of life.

“We try not to think about it, but [the memories] are ever-present on our minds and I am beginning to run out of hope,” Moore said.

Moore and Gustafson were running late that June morning in 2005 when the electricity suddenly went off — their first indication that something was terribly wrong.

“John was upstairs and he looked out of the window and saw trees and stiff moving down the hill,” Moore said. “I ran outside and saw our 40-foot bridge over the creek was vertical.”

They had the presence of mind to head upstairs and manually open the garage doors so they could get at their cars. Moore ran back downstairs to get his contacts, with Gustafson yelling at him to hurry.

“We moved the cars and then just watched in shock,” Moore said. “I started to cry.

“People were driving by as if nothing was happening and they couldn’t figure out why we were standing outside in our pajamas.

“A short time later the police evacuated us.”

Emergency personnel performed heroically that day, escorting people to safety and soothing their fears about separated family members or missing pets.

Division Fire Chief Jeff LaTendresse and veteran police Officer Robert Van Gorder risked their lives to scramble up the unstable hillside to rescue an elderly couple from their precariously perched home.

“When I think back about that day, I am glad I didn’t know what Jeff was doing,” said Mindy LaTendresse, speaking as a wife and not the deputy city clerk.

“The first I heard about it was when Bobby Van Gorder poked his head into my office and said, ‘Your husband is a hero.’

“Jokingly, I said, I know, and so are you. At the time I had no idea what they had done.”

LaTendresse and Van Gorder were awarded the Medal of Courage by the Laguna Beach Police Department for their charge up the crumbling hill to rescue the couple from their home. LaTendresse also was recognized by the Orange County Fire Chiefs Assn. and insisted that Van Gorder accompany him to the awards banquet presentation.

Not all the memories of that day are scary or the stuff of nightmares.

“When Bluebird Canyon slid, everybody in town came through — not one family that was evacuated had to go to a shelter,” said Liza Stewart, whose family’s home was damaged.

Elizabeth Schneider, then mayor, assured the displaced families that Laguna would be there for them.

And, indeed the community rallied, with donations of clothing, housing and money and an overwhelming vote to tax themselves an additional one-half cent on purchases to help pay for the restoration of the city infrastructure — which will also restore the lost building sites.

But when Moore and Gustafson left Bluebird Canyon that June morning, they were faced with a bleak future, their only possessions their cars, the gym clothes they kept stored in them and some dress clothes.

“The dress clothes were in the car because we were supposed to go to the theater that night,” Moore said. “Ironically, the play was titled ‘View from the Bridge.’”

It was more than a month and half before they were able to get back into the home they had named “Bluebird Haven” in an attempt to retrieve some family treasures and important documents.

“Our home was at the toe of the slide and everything dumped on it and Bob Powers’ [next door] home,” Moore said.

Since then, Moore and Gustafson have moved four times into temporary quarters, waiting for their property to be cleared for rebuilding.

“We try to remember that we are fortunate that we are not in [Hurricane] Katrina Land where they lost their whole community,” Moore said. “We are not the only ones who have suffered a great loss and we are finally beginning to see real progress on the hill.”

City Recovery Coordinator Bob Burnham said Tuesday that he expects the restoration of Bluebird Canyon to be completed before the end of August.

“That means the hillside will be ready for rebuilding.” Burnham said. “All the contractor forces will be off the site.”

Burnham had nothing but compliments for the contractors on the project.

“They were awesome,” Burnham said. “John Schiller, who is with Steve Bubalo Construction, is a gem. He was on-site everyday. Craig Greenman from Moot Group, a construction management firm, was the construction supervisor.”

The project was unparalleled in Burnham’s experience. Having just retired as city attorney of Newport Beach, he certainly didn’t expect to be on the job for more than two years.

“I didn’t have a clue and I don’t think Ken [City Manager Frank] did either on how it would all evolve,” Burnham said.

“We had no time to go through the normal preliminary steps for a project. We started demolishing and moving dirt in July in order to get the drainage in before the rainy season.”

About 600,000 cubic yards of slide material was removed, some of it re-compacted and restored to the hillside.

“When the project is completed, there will be the same number of buildable lots on that side of Bluebird Canyon as there were before the slide,” Burnham said.

However, they won’t be the same.

“Some of the lots will be less steep, others more steep, but none greater than two-to-one,” Burnham said.

A two-to-one ratio means two back to one up, whether the measure is feet or inches.

As of today, the water main in the canyon is completed, although the water district still has some work to do, all utilities are in place along Flamingo Road, and sewers are available for nine lots on Flamingo, three on Bluebird Canyon Drive and three on Oriole.

On April 13, Burham presented to the council a cost estimate of almost $28.5 million to rebuild Flamingo Road, stabilize the headscarp, winterize the site, remove debris, and install drainage and sewer lines.

Staff was preparing documentation for reimbursements of $26.5 million from the state Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thanks to the intervention of Senator Dianne Feinstein, who fulfilled her promise to get the financing during a visit to the site.

The emotional cost is incalculable.

“Those are quality people up here,” Burnham said. “They have done an amazing job collectively and individually, dealing with this disaster.”

There are still hurdles to jump. Rebuilding of the private homes must be privately financed, as there is no government assistance for that.

“We are trying to look ahead,” Moore said. “Friends and medication help.”