L.A. County raids homeless camp under 10 Freeway

After the search, standing in the open air and the sunlight, he took off his mask and dripped sweat. "There were two nurseries," he said. "There was a dead cat in one of them. It looked like they had skinned it and ate it. They had a little barbecue set up. It's just wicked in there." He estimated that 30 squatters had been living there.

Archambault described it as "a hidden city" and said he had not seen anything like it in 27 years with the Sheriff's Department.

On Thursday, Caltrans engineers assessed the freeway's structure, and contractors hauled out piles of garbage.

Nearby, Dafoe was gathering up his belongings and stuffing them into a suitcase, wondering where he'd go next.

"Somewhere around here. It's a big river," he said. Wherever it is, he said, he prefers to stay out of public view. "I don't want people to feel uneasy because I'm around, like kids," he said. Dafoe, who describes himself as a former freight handler from Nebraska, said the baby paraphernalia found in the Cave is just bric-a-brac scavenged from recycling expeditions and that children have not lived there.

He said that only five people have been living there recently but that over the last decade or so, there have been dozens.

At nearby San Angelo Park, booths were set up to help homeless people find shelter. Doctors checked vital signs, and hot dogs were distributed. "This is not to take away their home, this is to give a home," Sheriff's Department spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

Caltrans workers say they've cleared out the Cave several times before, and that the freeway lights overhead are out because thieves have stolen the electrical wire, scavenging for copper to sell.

Don Griffiths, 47, the Caltrans bridge crew chief for L.A. County, said he's helped clean out 30 or 40 hidden dungeons like this in the last 15 years. "I've seen nastier ones, smellier ones, but this is the biggest one," he said.

Caltrans workers today will seal every opening they can find with quarter-inch sections of welded flat-plate steel.

"Nothing's impregnable with these guys. We do the best we can," Griffiths said. "They can steal a sledgehammer and beat on it all night long, and nobody can hear them."

Dafoe doubted that whatever Caltrans did to seal the Cave would be enough to keep people out. In time, he'd find another way in. "I don't say we're gonna go in right away, but it's gonna happen sooner or later," he said. "The only way they can keep people out of the Cave is by cementing the whole thing in."

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christopher.goffard@latimes.com

Times staff writer Corina Knoll and photographer Francine Orr contributed to this report.