Arresting a Potential Slide : Local governments need to move quickly to prevent more rain damage

Already devastated by fire, Laguna Beach now has lost the race against the first rainstorm. The city had made good progress in preparing to stop mudslides on slopes denuded of vegetation, but nature wouldn’t wait.

Thursday’s slides showed the need to step up efforts to minimize damage before the winter storm season descends in full.

It has been just over two weeks since blazes roared through Laguna’s hills. It was clear immediately that the fire had destroyed vegetation that keeps hillsides in place during rains. A burdened city could not get the necessary planting done; in any case, the slopes would not have greened in time.

Laguna Beach officials did move quickly after the fire to meet the threat of mudslides. Within days the city hired a firm to develop an erosion-control plan, and the company wisely consulted the cities of Oakland and Berkeley about their problems and solutions after the 1991 fires there.

County employees and laborers from the California Conservation Corps worked hard earlier this week to clean brush from drainage channels and to put thousands of bales of straw on hillsides as a brake for debris tumbling downward.

The city also benefited from the efforts of hundreds of residents, including high school students, who filled thousands of burlap bags with gravel and put them around storm drains, again hoping to stop rubbish from clogging the system.

Yet when the rain came, it produced sickening sights--cars washed down streets, debris messily scattered after having been piled neatly for removal.

Special briefings on erosion problems are scheduled for the Laguna Beach City Council and homeowners in the danger areas. That is the sort of thing that needs doing quickly, not just in Laguna Beach but in all of the region’s denuded fire zones.

Rainfall for the season is below normal so far, but forecasters say we could be in for another wet winter.

All of our fire-hit communities must move with all deliberate speed to prevent a bad situation from getting worse.