Slip, Sliding Away

Living in Southern California means that sometimes your house might move without you:

SAN DIEGO (AP) - A landslide swept away a chunk of an upscale hilltop neighborhood Wednesday, destroying a home, damaging five others and opening up a 50-yard chasm in a four-lane road.

Officials ordered 111 homes in the La Jolla neighborhood evacuated. No one was hurt in the collapse, which occurred the morning after city officials warned residents of four homes not to sleep in them because the land might give way.

The collapse shortly before 9 a.m. toppled power lines and left a 15-foot-deep ravine of crumpled pavement. Orange traffic cones and sections of big concrete pipes sat in the fissure slashing across the wide boulevard.

This slide occurred not far from a church that used to be a client of mine. Given that it was a typical all building/no congregation dying Baptist church, a landslide might have been a merciful ending.