When Rain-Swollen River Rises, Head for High Ground

I first met Nancy Rigg, over the telephone, in February of 1980. I was working for the Denver Post and someone phoned to say that former Denver resident Earl Higgins had drowned in the Los Angeles River during the L.A. rainy season while trying to save a young boy. Rigg, the caller said, was Higgins’ fiancee and was strolling with him when he dashed off on his ill-fated rescue mission.

Every year since then, when the rains came to Southern California, Rigg has had flashbacks. In the midst of all the sorrow over Higgins’ death, however, was also her frustration that there wasn’t a more organized approach to rescue and recovery operations for him. Indeed, his body wasn’t recovered for nine months, having gone 30 miles through 11 different jurisdictions.

Then, just a year ago, Rigg and millions of others watched the television footage of 15-year-old Adam Bischoff hurtling down the flood channel as rescuers tried vainly to pluck him from the raging waters of the Los Angeles River. For Rigg, watching Bischoff being washed away was watching history repeating itself 12 years later.

The rainy season is once again upon us, but this year Rigg has reason for at least muted celebration. She has co-produced a 20-minute video entitled “No Way Out,” a documentary on the perils of the area’s flood channels. In addition, in the wake of young Bischoff’s death, she was among those who successfully petitioned Los Angeles city and county officials to coordinate rescue procedures.

Rigg’s efforts have reached into Orange County, where her voice is no less needed. Her video recently arrived at the county’s Department of Education for use in area schools.

The Santa Ana River has claimed lives over the years, but certainly not as many as the Los Angeles River. However, it’s every bit as potentially deadly.

“We consider it a very, very dangerous river,” said Tom Connelie, a manager in the public works operation of Orange County’s Environmental Management Agency. Unlike the Los Angeles River, the Santa Ana is largely a dirt-bottom river. To stabilize the movement of sediment, engineers have built “grade stabilizers” across the river that, when the river is flowing, look like little waterfalls. Those waterfalls, Connelie said, are deadly, creating a churning effect like a washing machine and wreaking havoc on anyone caught in the river.

Also unlike the Los Angeles River, the Santa Ana is a major recreational attraction. With earthen banks along much of its length, it’s more appealing to nature lovers. “It’s a very attractive nuisance,” Connelie said.

Although Orange County can’t claim a unified, coordinated program such as Los Angeles finally adopted last year, it’s making progress, according to Guy Brown, a Garden Grove firefighter and one of the county’s experts in swift-water rescue.

“Right now, it a breaking field,” Brown said. “Like in the ‘70s, it was the paramedic field. In the ‘80s, we had hazardous materials. In the ‘90s, we’re really focusing on urban search and rescue.” While earthquake procedures are the more well-known aspect of the current emphasis on urban disasters, swift-water rescue is part of it, Brown said. “You’re going to see more drills on it (swift-water rescue) in the next year,” Brown said.

Anyone who remembers the Adam Bischoff footage from a year ago knows how difficult and risky such rescues are. The victim is, quite literally, being carried from city to city at speeds that can exceed 30 miles an hour.

Many rescuers have to be positioned along the victim’s route and, as was the case with Bischoff, even spotting the person in the river is no guarantee he can be picked out of the water.

But, through the efforts of dogged citizens like my friend Nancy Rigg, the word is getting out.

It’s hard to picture the Santa Ana River as a potential killer, especially since it looks like Dry Gulch most of the year.

That’s why I’m hoping county schools Supt. John F. Dean looks at Rigg’s video and makes it available to schools. It could save a life.

I haven’t done nearly as much as Rigg, but this is one column I’m glad I’m writing before--instead of after--some school kid thinks it’d be neat to play chicken near the river banks.