Landslide destroys LA home and threatens at least 2 others

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LOS ANGELES, March 14, (AP): A landslide reduced a Los Angeles house under renovation to a jumble of lumber, pulled the pool and deck away from a second home, and left the pool at a third residence on the edge of a huge fissure early Wednesday.
The slide occurred just before 3 a.m. in Sherman Oaks, a neighborhood of expensive homes about 12 miles (19 kilometers) northwest of downtown. An initial search found no victims, but several people were evacuated from one house, the Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement.
There was no immediate word on the cause of the landslide, but numerous slides have happened in Southern California due to drenching winter storms that saturated the ground.
Since Jan. 1, downtown LA has had almost 16 inches (41 centimeters) of rain, which is nearly twice what it normally gets by this time of year. By early February, the city had reported nearly 600 mudslides, had re-tagged 16 buildings as unsafe to enter and had yellow-tagged more than 30 others, limiting access to them.
News helicopter video revealed the extent of the slide. The destroyed house, which appeared to be in the midst of a renovation, was crushed with most of its roof lying on the ground. Next door, the slide pulled a pool and deck area away from a house.
Up the hill, the slide left a tennis court and pool on the edge of a huge fissure. A table and chairs that used to be poolside stood on a patch of deck on the other side of the gaping fissure. Firefighters drained the pool to reduce weight on the hill.
“Department of Building and Safety is responding to assess the structures and hillsides,” the Fire Department said.
Southern California has seen a lull in storms in recent days, but slides and rockfalls have continued. Sections of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu and State Route 27 through Topanga Canyon west of Los Angeles have been especially hard-hit.

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