During the second week of January, the media spotlight focused on a deadly landslide in the small seaside town of La Conchita, California. Ten people lost their lives under a torrential mass of mud slurry that let loose and flowed down the cliff in the early morning hours, following several days of persistently heavy rainfall. The mud flowed easily around an insignificant barrier erected by Ventura County after another landslide that occurred there, in the same area of the cliff face, in 1995. Doctoral candidate Jeff Hemphill worked with the late Dr. John E. Estes in 1998, who was then working as an expert witness on behalf of the owners of the La Conchita Ranch. The 1995 slide caused significant damage to the homes at the base of the cliff and property devaluation throughout the community. A lawsuit was filed by the homeowner’s insurance companies after the 1995 slide, based on the premise that the Ranch’s irrigation of the orchard that occupies the bluff atop the cliff caused the slope failure. Click for more details
