Heavy rain runoff erodes foundation of San Gabriel home

SAN GABRIEL, Calif. (KABC) -- A home in San Gabriel Valley was red-tagged Tuesday morning after heavy rain runoff filled a wash and partially eroded the house's foundation.

Around 5:30 a.m., the family of a home in the 5300 block of Pondosa Avenue noticed something was wrong with their home. After a couple of hours of steady rain, parts of the foundation of the home were washed away, leaving the home teetering over the edge of the Rubio Wash storm channel.

"The foundation has been damaged and half of the house has nothing under. The other side has only been held on by the concrete, so if the concrete wasn't there the whole house would have tipped over," said Allen Yang, who lived in the home.

The home behind Yang's was also evacuated. Yang's home had a temporary retaining wall underneath as part of a railroad construction project that involved tearing up part of the storm channel.

But the retaining wall failed as the heavy runoff waters rushed through the channel and ate away at the dirt underneath the home.

"If it continues to erode, then it's going to threaten the structural integrity of the house and possibly cause catastrophic failure of the house," said Paul Hubler with the Alameda Corridor East Construction Authority.

The families from the two evacuated homes were housed at a local hotel.

In addition to the damaged home, 250,000 gallons of sewage poured into the canal and forced the closure of several beaches in Long Beach. The spill was stopped around 1 p.m. and the waters will be monitored for the next three days.