After torrential rains drenched Southern California, causing widespread damage across the region, two families in the Baldwin Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles have been displaced because a hillside collapse destroyed their homes.
The back bathroom wall of Matt Jewett’s home on Don Diablo Drive punched through the hallway Sunday night when the hill behind his family’s house came crashing down.
Fortunately, the Jewett family, including 4-year-old Jack and 2-year-old Cully, were out of state when the mudslide occurred.
“It’s a miracle we were not here,” he told KTLA’s Sandra Mitchell.
On Wednesday, city crews were out helping to clean up the mess of mud, water and rocks that took down doors, cracked walls and destroyed precious family heirlooms.
Nearly every room of their home is filled with about 4 feet of mud.
“It’s terrifying,” Jewett said. “Sunday night was really just a helpless feeling, knowing all this stuff was happening. When we reached our breaking point, we just hugged each other and started sobbing. The family is safe, the kids are safe and that was a huge relief.”
The family’s home, along with the residence next door have been red tagged, meaning the houses are unlivable and are not safe to even enter.
Two other homes at the top of the hill on Don Felipe Drive have been yellow tagged, meaning residents are only allowed inside their homes to grab their belongings.
“All of this can come down,” neighbor Trish Morris said of the hillside facing her home.
Morris and other neighbors are making their own evacuation plans in case the hill starts to slide again.
“It’s scary because while it was raining, you could see the rain running through the cracks,” she added. “That means it’s bringing the rest of it down. I feel like it it’s just a big mud hill and it’s all just going to crumble.”
As for Jewett, he has already met with structural engineers. While he’d like to bring his family together again at their hillside home, experts tell him that it is going to take a lot of work to make the home safe.
“This isn’t going to happen nearly as quickly as you would like,” Jewett explained. “There are a lot of steps along the way.”
Jewett has reached out to his home insurance company, though he’s not sure how that’s going to go because most policies do not cover damage from mudslides.
In the meantime, a GoFundMe campaign has been organized to help the family as they work to recover from the loss.