Landslides

June 16 ” Landslide Management: Examples from Southern California and Possible Teton County Application”.

Presented by Charles Nestle, County of LA, Depart. Public Works.

A lawsuit pertaining to landslide damage costs millions  –  no, this is not Teton County, but Los Angeles, 1956. Charles Nestle will explain how this and similar events caused the LA County to add amendments to the County Building Code requiring geologic investigations of hillside development. He will explain how this has affected various development plans, and how the Count of LA might have handled development in cases elsewhere – such as the Budge Drive slide in Jackson.

Landslides throughout the United States are estimated by the United States Geological Survey to cause between 2 billion and 4 billion dollars of financial loss per year.  A lawsuit following the 1956 reactivation of the Portuguese Bend landslide in Los Angeles County, California resulted in the affected homeowners being awarded a $10 Million settlement (approximately $80 million in todays dollars).  This event, along with several other landslides affecting the City of Los Angeles, prompted the County of Los Angeles to add amendments to the County Building Code in 1962 requiring geologic investigations of hillside development projects.

This presentation will discuss several examples of projects within Los Angeles County that were affected by landslides and how these landslides were addressed, and mitigated.  Successes and failures will be presented along with lessons learned.  A few landslides outside of Los Angeles County will be discussed with an emphasis on how the County of Los Angeles might have handled development of those areas.  These include the La Conchita, SR530 (formerly known as Oso, WA), and the Budge Drive (Jackson, WY) landslides.