National, State & Local News - Pulte/Centex Coverage on Landslide
A San Antonio planning official says a retaining wall designed to hold up the land beneath a group of homes that now sit precariously on a crumbling hilltop did not have a permit.

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No permit for failed wall
Centex, the Texas-based developer that Pulte Homes acquired last year, did not have a permit for “an improperly constructed retaining wall” that collapsed Sunday, causing damage to at least three homes and forcing the evacuation of dozens of families, according to city officials.  About 300 homeowners from subdivision, many now angry, frustrated and living in a hotel, left the meeting with the builder, saying they still had plenty of questions about safety, future property values and possible rains later this week.  “We got a bunch of runaround,” subdivision resident Richard Gutierrez said. “We just want a guarantee that this won't happen again, and they can't even do that.”  “Everyone was asking them, ‘Would you stay in these homes?'” resident Belinda Riggs said. “‘How can you guarantee that our kids won't be hit by those rocks that are crumbling?'”

Homes evacuated as retaining wall crumbles
San Antonio Planning Director Roderick Sanchez said Centex Homes was required to get a permit for the wall — but no permit was acquired... One neighbor who was among the first homebuyers in the subdivision 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 as heavy equipment stuffed dirt beneath an exposed foundation. "And they paid an extra $10,000 for those lots."

PULTE/CENTEX Creators Increasing 4” per Hour
The failure forced the evacuation of 20 homes on Sunday. Fire officials said the incident started Saturday night when residents began hearing sounds around their homes. Fire officials said they came out Sunday morning and saw land beginning to shift and separate underneath three homes.

Homebuilders' engineers evaluate land shift
San Antonio Fire Department officials on Monday continued to keep residents out of about 80 homes in a Northwest Side neighborhood, where engineers working for homebuilders were shoring up a steep hill that partially collapsed, threatening homes above and below the growing gap... Authorities Sunday said crevices measured from 12 to 15 feet deep, and from 6 to 8 feet wide, although fire department spokeswoman Melissa Sparks said it remains unclear Monday exactly how much the land shifted overnight. At last check, authorities estimated the ground was moving at a rate of about 1 inch every 15 minutes, Sparks said.

'Slope Failure' Causes Evacuation
San Antonio fire officials spent Sunday night monitoring what they are now calling a "slope failure" in a northwest side neighborhood...some places the earth has shifted causing openings 8 to 10 feet deep and several feet wide... the ground is still shifting at a rate of 4 inches every hour and that it was a possibility that some of the homes could collapse. "I wouldn't be surprised to wake up Monday morning and see some of these homes broken and falling down part of the hill," said Kidd.

Massive sinkhole forces evacuation of NW-side homes
About 20 families have moved to emergency shelters after a sinkhole formed in the backyards of a neighborhood near Bandera and Highway 1604. The homes sit on top of a 40-foot-tall retaining wall, but locals say two small cracks in the wall opened up Sunday morning. As the cracks widened, the homes above the wall began to shift, destroying foundations, fencing and man-made barriers.

Growing landslide forces evacuation of 80 families
The city's emergency management coordinator says at least five homes are in danger of being destroyed in a "significant landslide" that is causing the earth to continue to shift on the Northwest Side... The landslide, which was previously thought by some to be a sinkhole, is still growing. It is at least six-feet wide in some places and ten to fifteen feet deep. Crews do not know what is causing the landslide. Chief Kidd says you can hear and see the land moving and the earth falling.

Workers protest homebuilders in Cool Springs
With a giant inflatable pig in tow, workers from Michigan-based Pulte Homes and its subsidiary Centex Corp. joined homeowners in a protest in Cool Springs today. It's a greedy pig. It represents how we feel that homebuilders treat their customers and the workers that build their homes," said Paul Price, campaign organizing director.