LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. (AP) – Hundreds of homeowners waited anxiously to return to their hillside neighborhood as crews worked to restore water and power Thursday, a day after a landslide destroyed 17 luxury houses and severely damaged 11 others.

Police kept roads blocked in case more soil shifted in the Bluebird Canyon area, but by midday there had been no additional movement around the multimillion-dollar houses with vistas of the Southern California coastline.

Early Wednesday, homeowners alerted by the cracking and poppping sounds of walls and pipes coming apart ran for their lives in their pajamas. Five people suffered minor injuries.

About 1,000 people in 350 undamaged homes were evacuated as a precaution, and most spent the night with neighbors. They waited Thursday for officials to announce when they could return home.

“We may have some good news. … We think we’ve stabilized the area,” Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider told KNBC-TV. She wiped away tears while praising neighbors who had opened their doors to evacuees.

Twenty homes were deemed uninhabitable, and no one was being allowed inside. Residents of 14 other homes were being allowed to return only briefly to gather belongings under supervision.

The cause of the disaster was under investigation, though geologists said it was almost certainly related to the winter storms that drenched Southern California. Laguna Beach has gotten nearly double its usual yearly rainfall.

The slide occurred about a mile from the beach on steep sandstone hills that have been densely covered with large two- and three-story homes, many worth $2 million or more.

AP-ES-06-02-05 1706EDT

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