A Laurel Canyon home was evacuated after the hillside above it began sliding down following the last in a series of powerful winter storms to roll through the area on Thursday, officials said.
Firefighters conducting storm patrol came across a chunk of pavement that had collapsed along the 8200 block of Mannix Drive, falling to the street below and taking a large amount of dirt with it, around 5:15 p.m., according to Battalion Chief Timothy Kelly with the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Mannix Drive was shut down through the area, and there was also a good amount of soil on Baird Road, the street below, Kelly said.
The slide came after 2.28 inches of rain fell in the area over the past 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service.
There was no immediate concern for the roughly 20 homes on that section of Mannix, beyond the large amount of muck.
However, one home on Gould Avenue, which sits below Baird Road, was only about 60 yards from where the slide had terminated, Kelly said.
Because that residence is directly in line with the cascading dirt, and because of the potential for the hillside to decay further, its residents were evacuated.
“That amount of dirt produces a lot of force,” Kelly noted.
A geologist and structural engineer with the city’s Department of Building and Safety were responding to assess the potential for further movement. Fire officials would then determine what further action needed to be taken.
“For now, we’ve mitigated any potential threat to the public,” Kelly said.
Crews from the L.A. Department of Water and Power and Southern California Gas Co. would also examine the utilities under the street to see if they were impacted by the cave in.
Kelly said that the sliding dirt “created a channel, probably about 5 feet wide, down the hillside below but dumped quite a bit of the hillside dirt on Barid below, which is probably about 2 feet high and 50 feet long.”
Officials remained on scene monitoring the situation Thursday night.