pray4surf wrote: ...
Well, my opinion is it's the "fault" of all the human entities above...a combination of short-sideness and various forms of human nature which can generally lumped together under the term "greed" in a global sense. I don't mean to ascribe malfeasance, simply the desire of all involved to get something they want as cheaply as they can w/o consideration for the "big picture". If, otoh, one were to dispassionately step back and look at what happens on these hillsides over a period of, say, a couple of hundred years, factor in the pressures of additional run off caused by the building and do an adequate analysis of the soil mechanics, it would become clear that such "disasters" are, in fact, man-made and inevitable, "Acts of God" (except in the sense legal that insurance companies use the phrase).
So, yes, imo "the homeowners are screwed..."--they're the ones who ultimately chose to get something they wanted at a short term price w/o adequately considering potential long term costs...now, like life or health insurance, that may be a risk they're willing to take, but, if one's in such an area, it shouldn't take much imagination to figure out what happen if...