Cedar Hills homes breached

CEDAR HILLS — The landslide that has threatened homes in Cedar Hills for 15 days finally buckled and broke through the back walls of two townhouses and started on a third Thursday night.

The breach left piles of dirt in the garages and displaced the weight of the houses from the foundation wall to two "I" beams in the garage.

"Two feet up above the foundation, the whole wall caved in," said Cedar Hills Fire Chief Craig Carlisle. "You could see from the garage door out the back. It's done a lot of damage today."

Mud that had moved 11 feet since Wednesday night probably moved 4 to 5 feet farther into the homes Thursday night and wasn't showing signs of slowing down, Carlisle said.

Although the movement isn't discernible with constant watching, Carlisle said changes were noticeable and measurable in five-minute intervals. Loud popping and cracking sounds were also audible as the houses tried to withstand the massive pressure.

No structural damage to other parts of the houses has been detected and will most likely escape detection until after the rains have stopped and the ground has stopped shifting.

But Thursday was too much for Valarie Sorenson, owner of the home at 10524 N. Sage Vista. She decided she was tired of waiting for the mud to move on, so she checked out of her hotel room, her home for the past two weeks, and got a rental unit near her old house. Highland Homes is paying her rent while she worries about the mortgage payment on her damaged house.

"The water is starting to seep in, the walls are bowing; it's to the point where we're standing there watching it," she said. "What options have I got? I can't save it, I can't go dig dirt out and keep it from falling. 'If you're going to fall, just fall.' "

Although city officials and engineers had hoped for a sunny spell, 3 inches of rain have fallen since Saturday, keeping the soil wet and preventing removal efforts.

AMEC Earth and Environmental Inc. had been helping to monitor movement, but when the slide began slipping again the crew members went back to sitting on the sidelines with everyone else, waiting for a break in the weather.

"Because the slide is unstable, you can't get on it," said Michael Jollis, vice president of communications for AMEC. "We can't do much of an investigation if it's an unstable environment." He said workers will remain on site to offer help.

Carlisle said Cedar Hills officers will visit every hour to check the slide's progress, alerting the necessary officials if anything starts to collapse.

The townhouses sell for $150,000 to $160,000 each, giving the four-plex an estimated value of close to $640,000.

"It's hard to know the status of the buildings while the soil is still wet and moving," said Gordon Jones, president of Highland Homes, which built the townhouses. "I don't know what the outcome will be. . . . I don't know that there's anything to stop those kind of forces."

---

E-mail: sisraelsen@desnews.com