LAGUNA BEACH : Watch Is Kept on Sagging Sidewalk

When she first got the call that a sidewalk was moving at a downtown park, Deputy City Clerk Roe Allen said that she didn’t know what to think. But the unidentified woman was adamant.

“She said she wanted to report the sidewalk was moving at Heisler Park near the bowling green and that we better get somebody out there right away to look at it,” Allen said. The Friday caller insisted that she could actually see the pathway shift.

“I didn’t take it too seriously because we get a lot of crazy calls here,” Allen said, “but I did follow through.”

The call was no hoax, city workers discovered when they arrived at the site about 4:30 p.m. About 20 feet of walkway near Jasmine Street and Cliff Drive had simply slid 2 to 3 feet into the cliff above the ocean. After checking with Caltech in Pasadena on Monday, Municipal Services Director Terry Brandt ruled out the possibility that the landslide was caused by seismic activity. The cause, he concluded, was recent high tides and high surf.

The area where the approximately 8-foot-wide walkway collapsed is the scene of previous erosion, he said. About five years ago, a tree in the vicinity was uprooted by erosion, Brandt said.

The area has been cordoned off and is being watched around the clock by beach patrol and police officers. Geologists will determine what can be done to repair the damage.

Debbie Litwin, the first beach patrol officer on the site when the landslide was reported, said the slide started with a slight fracture in the earth.

“It started out a really small crack and just started getting bigger,’ she said. ‘It . . . very gradually fell.”