SAN DIEGO --
San Diego officials ordered evacuations Wednesday morning after a large section of Soledad Mountain Road buckled and homes began sliding down Soledad Mountain.
The fire department is on scene in the 5700 block of Soledad Mountain Road between Palm Canyon Road and Palomino Circle. The hole in the roadway is about 50 yards wide and roughly 12 feet deep.
Helicopter video shows heavy damage to the roadway in front of five homes on the street. Several of the homes are also slipping down the hill, and one of them appears to be be heavily damaged.
San Diego Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque said that officials are not sure how many home will be evacuated because of the landslide. He also said that at least eight fire engines and six additional trucks had been sent to the scene.
Luque said at about 10 a.m. that as many as 20 homes on Desert View Drive, which is near the landslide area, could also be in danger. The homes are located down the hill, underneath the slide area.
San Diego Gas & Electric arrived at about 9:30 a.m., according to Luque. Crews were shutting down power to overhead lines as well as gas lines.
SDG&E spokeswoman Per Rachel said that gas leaks have been reported in the area and the utility was aware of land shifting in the area. She said SDG&E installed flex pipes and emergency shut off valves.
Thousands of customers are being affected by the outages, Laing said. As 9:45 a.m., 2,443 customers had lost some service.
Retired San Diego State University geology professor Pat Abbott told NBC 7/39 that there have been periodic landslides in the area since 1961. He said that all repairs that have been done have just been "Band-Aids" and that the only way to truly fix the problem is to to tear down all the homes in the area and start over.
Abbot also said that the problem would likely happen again with the next big earthquake on the Rose Canyon Fault.
All of the home in the area are valued well above $1 million.
Check back here for updates on this breaking news story.
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