Mudslides assault homes near LA
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Authorities say 43 homes have been damaged and 540 are under evacuation orders in the aftermath of powerful mudslides in the foothills north of Los Angeles that were stripped by a summer wildfire.
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A Los Angeles County Fire Department Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) member, carries a 91-year-old woman from her flood-damaged home on Ocean View Boulevard Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010 in La Canada Flintridge, Calif. [Agencies] |
Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said at a news conference Saturday that parts of La Canada Flintridge were "devastated."
Antonovich said 12 homes had major damage and 31 had light or moderate damage. He says 25 vehicles were damaged.
There have been no reported injuries.
Antonovich blamed the destruction on the US Forest Service for what he called the agency's "inaction" last summer in dealing with the massive Station Fire that denuded hillsides that gave way Saturday.
Some residents complained they were not told to get out until the brunt of the damage was done — unlike during heavy rains last month when officials repeatedly warned foothill communities to be on alert.
"Nobody knew it was going to be this bad," said Katherine Markgraf, whose mother's house was filled with more than two feet of mud, debris and tangled tree roots. "Last time, they started warning us in time to prepare for it."
The storm's payload came between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Markgraf said she only got an alert around 10:30 a.m.
Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Matt Levesque said forecasters and county and city officials did not anticipate the magnitude of the slow-moving storm.
"If we had known there would have been this much rain we would have evacuated," Levesque said. "It was more rain than anyone thought, and more intense too. And it stalled there over the hillsides."
Rainfall totals topped 4 inches in a 24 hour period in some areas, the National Weather Service said.
Markgraf spoke to a reporter as she stood on Manistee Drive, a cul-de-sac under an overflowed debris basin at what appeared to be the epicenter of the storm's damage.
Her mother Pat Anderson, president of the La Canada chamber of commerce, who lives in the house, had to call a neighbor to help her escape the rising mud in the predawn darkness. Anderson's car had been sucked out of its garage and shoved against her next door neighbor's home.
Crews working to the road said some houses had been shifted from their foundations by the weight of the deluge.
"It's surreal," Markgraf said as she surveyed her childhood home with a video camera, documenting the damage for insurance purposes. "It's nothing we expected."
The house next door was also filled with several feet of mud. The handlebars of an exercise bike could be seen sticking out the brown sludge and a kidney-shaped swimming pool was filled to the brim with mud and rocks. Couches, televisions and records were strewn about the buried yard.
Several residents said they woke up around 4 a.m. to the sound of crashing and rain pounding on their rooftops.
"It was like thunder," said Dave Becica, whose house was undamaged. "I said, I hope that's not the mountain coming down. It was the mountain."
Across the street, his neighbor was less fortunate. All the windows along the front of the house had been blown out and mud had swept through the house. Shoveling away what he could, the man declined to be interviewed.
Leslie Fernandes, 49, said he chose not evacuate in order to try to divert flowing debris flow from his house.
"I heard a roar and a rumble and I went to look outside and there were cars swept down the street," said Fernandes said.
A retaining wall on Fernandes' property burst and 2 feet of mud was piled on his driveway, topped with a layer of ash from last summer's wildfire.
"I'm glad I didn't leave otherwise we'd really be in trouble," he said.
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