Families in Limbo After Wall of Mud Slams Into Ventura Apartments

VENTURA —  Fighting back tears as she stared up at the muddy wreckage of her Cedar Street apartment house, Ventura College student Hsieh Hui-Rung said she never believed the hillside above her home would give way.

Even after authorities evacuated the apartment building last week, Hsieh thought the hillside would hold. And even after returning Monday to remove some of her belongings, she thought she would be able to go home for good once the rain let up.

She was wrong.

A thick wall of mud, as tall as a 20-story skyscraper and about half the length of a football field, slammed into the apartment house late Monday, pushing it into another building in the same complex directly downhill.

Hers was not the only apartment building in the area damaged by mud. Up the road, a smaller slide crashed into the rear of a four-unit apartment building early Tuesday. The 10 people in that building had already been evacuated.

“That’s my bedroom,” 26-year-old Julie Higbee said, pointing to a wall of mud that had blown out a window and pushed through a wall in her two-bedroom apartment.

Nearly all of her belongings were lost, with 2 feet of mud covering her bed and oozing out of her doorway.

“When I went up to the door today, I took a deep breath, opened the door and said, ‘It’s just stuff. Let it go,’ ” Higbee said.

Back at the other damaged complex, Hsieh said the landslide not only left her homeless but it swallowed irreplaceable items, including photographs and a Chinese painting from her mother. She had moved into the building only two months ago.

“I came back yesterday but I didn’t take all my stuff,” said Hsieh, 25, looking on Tuesday as city inspectors sized up the damage. “I regret that now.”

Authorities evacuated all 44 units in the three-building complex in the 600 block of Cedar Street, displacing about 160 residents. The three buildings are stacked like dominoes up the hillside off Ventura Avenue.

The landslide destroyed the upper building, while putting the middle building off-limits for at least a month. Authorities Tuesday decided against allowing residents to return to the lower building and planned to reevaluate the risks today.

“If other slides develop, all these buildings could come down,” Ventura building inspector Steve Sutton said.

In the hills that rise above Cedar Street, the soggy ground continued to shift.

Sitting on the bumper of a dull gray El Dorado, Ramiro Ortega and Fernando Contreras were counting all the items they had lost to the wall of mud and rock that crushed their apartment building Monday evening.

They were among dozens of people from 20 families who relocated to the Vagabond Inn, their expenses paid in part by the Red Cross.

Ortega, his wife and two children were evacuated from the building Thursday after authorities became alarmed by soil movement on the hillside.

“They wouldn’t let us get anything out, they said it was too dangerous,” Ortega said. “You work for a couple of years and now we don’t have nothing. It’s all gone.”

Contreras, 29, who lived in the apartment complex with his family for two years, was in the same predicament.

“It’s terrible,” he said. “What are we going to do? I don’t have family here. I don’t know where we will go.”

At a Red Cross emergency shelter set up at Anacapa Middle School, Ruben Echeverria was wondering the same thing. He and the 10 members of his family had only minutes to pick up a few belongings before evacuating their Cedar Street apartment, situated in the middle building.

“We’re still trying to figure out what we’re going to do,” he said, while seated on the school’s gymnasium floor. “I heard the police won’t let anyone up there so we can’t get any of our stuff. It looks like we’re stuck here for a while.”

Late Tuesday evening, authorities allowed 12 families in Echeverria’s building to return to their apartments and retrieve some of their most important belongings.

The residents, who may not be able to move back in for at least a month, were told to take only items that would last them for the next few days.

“We just took some clothes and stuff,” said Lupe Vega, 27, as she carried a large plastic bag from her apartment. “It’s pretty nice that they let us in.”

Worried about looters, city firefighters helped residents lug television sets, VCRs, stereos and microwaves to their cars. And as Vega and others continued to haul out belongings, other firefighters kept a watch on the slide.

Some of the evacuated apartment dwellers are staying temporarily at the Red Cross shelter, or have found room with family or friends.

“We’re going to stay at my sister’s for probably three weeks,” said Ysidro Morales, 27, as he carried his big-screen TV down the hill.

Alvarez is a Times staff writer and Gammon is a correspondent. Times staff writers Kate Folmar, Coll Metcalfe and Scott Hadly also contributed to this story.

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Ventura County Storm Damage

1. Matilija Canyon: Tiny community isolated by mudslides blocking road to Ojai.

2. East Ojai: Cleanup begins for owners of 25 homes swamped by up to 3 feet of flood water. Nearby county-owned Soule Park golf course reports about $100,000 in damage.

3. Dennison Grade: Main road between Ojai and Santa Paula still closed by damaged bridge.

4. Upper Ojai: Road between Upper Ojai and Santa Paula reopened after removal of mud.

5. Camp Comfort: 72 evacuated residents return to creekside encampment. Coyote Creek Road reopened.

6. Highway 150: Road to Santa Barbara remains closed indefinitely. To the east, Santa Ana Road remains blocked but Highway 33 reopens.

7. La Conchita: County engineers assess damage of Monday mudslides. U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein protests recision of $205,000 in federal aid to pay for 1995 emergency efforts in La Conchita.

8. Ventura Freeway: County’s main highway to the north is reopened, but new slides cause traffic to back up for miles. Pacific Coast Highway north of Ventura remains closed.

9. Cedar Street: About 60 residents of destroyed 12-unit apartment complex scramble to find new places to live.

10. Ventura River mouth: Union Pacific’s damaged bridge over river halts 20 to 22 daily trains. Repairs will take weeks.

11. Santa Paula: Engineers begin estimates of repairs of damaged Santa Paula Creek channel.

12. Fillmore: Santa Clara River floods orchard, destroying equipment and causing at least $1 million in damage.

13. Piru: Two-way traffic on California 126 expected to resume today over bridge undermined by erosion.

14. Lake Piru: Flooded road isolates 18 campers.

15. Oxnard Plain: Officials estimate that crops on 10,000 to 12,000 acres of farmland are damaged or destroyed. $19 million damage estimates will increase by millions.

16. Pacific Coast Highway: Road remains closed at Las Posas Road because of mudslides.

17. Camarillo: Undermined railroad track at Las Posas Road halts Metrolink service indefinitely.

18. Thousand Oaks: City crews clean up mud that flowed into condominiums near Lynn Road. New sinkhole appears at Hillcrest Drive and Moorpark Road.