After days of heavy rain, the strongest storm of the year brought dangerous debris flows and rock- and mudslides across Southern California on Friday, including in several areas that last month were ablaze with devastating fires.
Some areas in the region received as much as 12 centimeters of rain this week, the National Weather Service said.
“There are plenty of reports of debris flow,” meteorologist Scott Kleebauer of the weather service said Friday.
The scorched earth left behind by the fires is now particularly vulnerable to the water-fueled rock- and mudslides, as the vegetation that once anchored the soil was burned away.
While this week’s rain is beginning to ease, that does not mean the slides will stop. The drenched soil can continue to move even after the rain subsides.
Parts of the iconic Pacific Coast Highway were shut down Thursday because of flooding and mudslides.
In Pacific Palisades, a highway intersection was under a meter of sludge.
Photographs posted on social media showed parked cars in Pacific Palisades covered in mud up to their windows. Bulldozers have been assigned to the area to clean up the muck.
In one harrowing experience Thursday, a member of the Los Angeles Fire Department was driving along the Pacific Coast Highway when a debris flow swept his vehicle into the ocean. Erik Scott, a spokesperson for the fire department, said the driver was able to get out of his vehicle and reportedly suffered only minor injuries.
In Sierra Madre, a city of 10,000 that was the site of last month’s Eaton Fire, a boulder-strewn mudslide damaged several homes.
“It happened very quickly but it was very loud, and you could even hear the ground or feel the ground shaking,” Bull Duvall, who has lived in Sierra Madre for 28 years, told The Associated Press. City officials issued an evacuation order warning residents that emergency responders would not enter locations with active mud and debris flows.
The National Weather Service confirmed Friday that a weak tornado hit a mobile home community Thursday in Oxnard, California. There were no reports of deaths or injuries at Country Club Mobile Estates, but property damage included ripped roofs and downed power lines.
The rain was badly needed in the region, much of which is still suffering from drought.
In nearby Nevada, Las Vegas was glad to see rain Thursday, after enduring more than 200 days without precipitation. A National Weather Service Las Vegas post said, “Las Vegas has officially measured 0.01 inch of rainfall this morning, effectively ending our dry streak of 214 days without measurable rain.”