La Conchita Landslide 10th Anniversary: A Day of Remembrance and Warning
Today is the sad 10th anniversary of the La Conchita landslide on Ventura's coast, with a bell ringing 10 times at 1:20 pm today, Saturday January 10, for the ten who were killed.
Here are links to understand what happened at La Conchita and to appreciate the danger of building homes under or on unstable hillside locations:
http://www.landslideblog.org/2008/08/la-conchita-landslide-verdict.html
http://www.vcstar.com/news/local-news/la-conchitas-hill-remains-a-loaded-gun-a-decade-later_95405564
Then more recently we experienced the Camarillo Springs debris flow, which made national news. Whenever it rains in the foothills, we look toward the green hills—and recently these days brown and denuded—with both delight and caution. Our urge to live right on them can have real and disastrous consequences. See the Camarillo Springs Rock Slide Videos and 175 photos:
http://www.weather.com/news/news/camarillo-springs-ventura-county-mudslide
Those who might consider approving the reshaping, leveling, and filling-in of the hills and ravines for estate housing higher up behind the City of Ventura need to remember these two events. Each one had its particular circumstances and causes. Still the whole range of our local foothills is mainly composed of rocks and sand, with very shaky stability. Geologists can give one the probabilities of trouble, but no assurances or guarantees about the permanence of a hillside building site.
We need to remember that today, with painful evidence of our unstable terrain.