Moving Ground Forces Residents Out of Apartments

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Oct. 6, 2007 (KABC-TV) (KABC) -- Dozens of Laguna Niguel families were forced out of their homes because the ground beneath their apartments is on the move.

Following an emergency evacuation, they were allowed back in Saturday to pack up their belongings.

It was an unplanned moving day at the Laguna Summit Apartment Complex. Residents of three buildings packed up. They're being forced to leave because the ground beneath their homes is shifting.

"Maybe three weeks ago we got a notice saying that they're shutting it down, we got 30 days to get out and now all of the sudden (Friday) night they tell us we got to leave immediately, so now we're moving," Steven Bolin said.

There are large cracks in the concrete of the garage beneath one building that have been there for a month. Last week city officials gave residents a month to find new homes. But Friday engineers detected an alarming amount of movement in an underground fault line. Concerned about the possibility of a landslide, city officials declared the buildings unsafe and dozens of people were evacuated Friday night.

"They just told us that, that it's not structurally sound or something like that and we have to get out as soon as possible," Summer Gary said.

"We had the geologists out here (Saturday) morning early to check all of the monitoring equipment, and to make sure there wasn't any further movement of the buildings which there wasn't," Bob Lenard, of the City Planning and Building Department, said.

Experts are particularly worried about support columns under the buildings that are visibly leaning.

Engineers will continue to monitor the movement of the soil underneath these buildings daily. In the meantime they'll remain yellow-tagged.

Residents of 48 units are being allowed to remove their belongings this weekend. Some are moving in to other buildings in the complex.

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