SAN ANTONIO -- Construction crews moved dirt to shore up a group of houses precariously perched on a crumbling hill in San Antonio on Monday as engineers tried to determine why the land below was shifting, causing the evacuation of dozens of homes.
Gaping crevices, some 15 feet deep, cut across yards as dirt cascaded into a towering stone retaining wall that began to give way. Crews packed dirt under one home and around its exterior after part of its foundation was exposed during the landslide.
About 80 homes were evacuated on Sunday after a resident in the northwest side subdivision reported that his backyard was sliding downhill. By Monday afternoon, residents in about 50 of those homes were allowed to return after inspections and soil monitoring found them to be safe, said Valerie Dolenga, a spokeswoman for Pulte Homes Inc., the parent company of the neighborhood's builder, Centex Homes.
No one has been injured since the soil started sliding beneath the homes on Sunday. But a nearly 1,000-foot-long retaining wall was nearly split in two by the landslide that also caused fences in the upper-middle class neighborhood to crumple like accordions.
One neighbor who was among the first homebuyers in the subdivision, developed in 2004 and set among rolling hills, said Monday he was initially told no homes would be built on the crumbling ridge because it was too steep.
Romeo Peart, 32, said one retaining wall failed several years ago before the current one was built and homes were constructed above it.
"They can keep the view now," Peart said, shaking his head. "And they paid an extra $10,000 for those lots."
The landslide appears to be the result of poor retaining wall design, said Sazzad Bin-Shafique, an assistant engineering professor and soil expert at the University of Texas-San Antonio who went out to the site on Monday.
The near-vertical wall likely failed under the weight of the area's clay soil that expands when drenched with heavy precipitation, as it was last week, he said. Steep, tall retaining walls can hold up if built correctly, he said.
"We have engineering solutions, but sometimes we do something because we want to reduce costs," Bin-Shafique said. "Many times, it will be OK, but sometimes, it will not."
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