CJ Smith had just taken a video of his rainy view along the San Clemente coast Wednesday morning when an ominous sound began to rumble.
“I heard a noise and felt the building kind of shake a bit,” said Smith, 41. When he looked back outside his oceanfront apartment, the hillside behind a neighboring unit was gone.
“A bunch of dirt and everything just went down to the [beach] trail” that sits below the bluff, he said.
No one was injured in the landslide, but at least four buildings in the 1500 block of Buena Vista — including Smith’s — have been evacuated and red-tagged. San Clemente Mayor Chris Duncan said he wasn’t sure how many people were evacuated, but the four buildings include 20 units, though some are vacation or second homes.
Some of the units were initially yellow-tagged, meaning they were damaged but still accessible to residents, but Duncan said officials have concerns that the hillside is still not settled — especially with the chance for more rain in the coming days.
“There’s still a significant amount of moisture out there,” Duncan said Thursday morning. “The geologist was very concerned about the four structures that we’ve red-tagged, because the hillside was continuing to move. It’s very much a dynamic situation, and we’re going to continue monitoring this.”
Though the next few days should be much drier, the National Weather Service is forecasting more rains early next week.
“Anyone along this stretch, in particular, should be vigilant and be prepared to potentially evacuate because we have more rain coming,” Duncan said.
This landslide came a day after Orange County officials declared a state of emergency following several moisture-heavy storms, which had already caused an earlier landslide in Newport Beach, along with other damage.
Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded his state of emergency Tuesday night to include Orange, Alpine and Trinity counties, meaning 43 of California’s 58 counties are now covered by the…