Steady Stream of Volunteers Helps Residents Prepare for a Downpour

Joe Lamas’ bike has been collecting dust since fire scoured the hills above Altadena in October.

Lamas, a Pasadena stockbroker, has given up his Saturday routine of seaside cycling for a different kind of physical labor--eight hours of backbreaking work filling, loading and stacking sandbags. He and dozens of other volunteers are toiling weekends to save scores of foothill homes that are now threatened by rainstorms.

“We don’t know these residents, but we feel for these people, and we want to work with the community to make things better,” said Lamas, 34. “You really get a high when these residents greet you in the front yard; they’re so happy to see you there.”

This Saturday’s sandbagging party promises to be the biggest yet.

More than 150 volunteers are expected to pitch in with the last sandbagging and seeding social before the holidays. Already, 100 attorneys and bankers have signed up. The organizers, a coalition of homeowner groups called Eaton Canyon Recovery Alliance, say the party’s a go, rain or shine.

“I’d say we’re 90% done with the sandbagging,” said Dick Baumer, a 49-year-old financial marketing consultant and 10-year Kinneloa Canyon resident who helped form the Recovery Alliance after his neighborhood was devastated by fire. About 6,000 more sandbags must be filled, he estimates.

Easing the jangled nerves of some foothill homeowners, teams of volunteer sandbaggers have already helped county, state and federal fire, forestry and erosion control workers pile tens of thousands of sandbags around homes between Altadena and west Sierra Madre.

In addition to sandbagging, federal and local flood control authorities have been clearing and enlarging reservoir-like debris basins in the San Gabriel Mountains in preparation for the winter’s worst storms, which usually hit from January through March. Though rainfall in the Los Angeles Basin averages about a foot a year, Mt. Wilson can get pummeled by 100 inches.

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“It’s what’s happening up there that really has us worried,” said Linda Williams, president of a homeowners group in Pasadena Glen. “The real danger will come when the hills are saturated.” She and other Glen residents hope the Forest Service will spend $150,000 to $200,000 to protect the slopes above their homes with straw and plastic matting.

Rains Saturday and Tuesday will help germinate seeds recently spread out over more than 4,000 acres of charred hillside. The vegetation helps hold the soil in place once its roots are several inches deep. But that won’t happen in time to stop the hillsides from shedding this winter, officials said.

“Some rain is very helpful,” said Rich Hawkins, fire manager of the Forest Service’s Arroyo Seco District, based in La Canada-Flintridge. “We want a storm every week of up to two inches because it will help move off some of the mud now, so that it doesn’t all come down at once.”

No major damage was reported after the recent storms, though the rains Saturday triggered a mudflow in Pasadena Glen. Were it not for sandbags piled three feet high along Pasadena Glen Road, many homes would have been damaged, officials said.

The community might not be so lucky next time, Hawkins said.

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Pasadena Glen is “a disaster waiting to happen,” he said. The community is at the base of a 600-acre watershed that was denuded by the October fire. In years past, heavy rains have sent mud and debris rushing down the watershed through the narrow canyon, destroying homes and sweeping away cars.

Residents there say they are living in constant worry of a deadly debris flow.

“People here don’t sleep at night when it rains,” said Williams, of the Pasadena Glen Homeowners Improvement Assn. Most have made plans to evacuate at the first drop of rain and to keep their cars parked on higher ground, she said.

And they take some comfort in knowing that another load of sandbags is on the way Saturday.

Anyone wishing to assist with sandbagging efforts Saturday should report at 8:30 a.m. to Los Angeles County Fire Station No. 66, 2764 Eaton Canyon Drive, in northeast Pasadena. Information: (818) 683-1483.