Southland Slogs Through Yet Another Cleanup

For hundreds of Southern Californians, Tuesday was a day to face yet another Herculean cleanup chore--this time after massive mudslides the night before that invaded homes, buried streets and swept away cars in Malibu and stranded residents in Altadena.

Shovels, hoses, skip-loaders and dump trucks were the tools of the day as armies of firefighters, Caltrans workers, public works employees and sheriff’s deputies joined scores of homeowners in the effort to make order out of chaos.

For some whose homes had been damaged in last fall’s devastating fires that stripped hillsides and set the stage for the slides, it was a case of deja vu. For others whose property had escaped the blazes it was the first grim confrontation with one of the disasters to strike Southern California in the last two years.

One of the first orders of business in Malibu on Tuesday was an attempt to reopen Pacific Coast Highway.

It was slow, nasty work, but because of the geological instability of the Malibu area, it was a task that has become familiar for Caltrans. PCH has been closed more than 300 times there in the last 10 years, mostly because of landslides.

The skip-loaders--pressed into service as rescue vehicles Monday--were used Tuesday to scoop up the soupy mud and dump it into the sea through gaps between oceanfront dwellings. Giant vacuum cleaners were used to suck up excess water that formed murky ponds in depressed areas of the road.

Crews cleared storm drains of dead chaparral, rocks and clots of mud. Half a dozen automobiles, some of them mired up to their windows, were hauled out by tow trucks.

Because of the immensity of the task, the road remained closed--probably until sometime today--and many residents who had fled during the night had to walk back to homes torn asunder when the torrential rains came late Monday afternoon and the avalanches of rock, mud and debris began cascading down canyons to the sea.

For residents, the worst-hit areas were along PCH at the hillside community of Big Rock and below Las Flores and Tuna canyons.

Just east of Big Rock, about 35 houses were surrounded by a sea of mud--a flood that invaded more than half the homes. Mud was piled up against another 13 houses west of Big Rock, where slime seeped into garages despite hastily erected sandbag barriers. At one home in Las Flores Canyon, a torrent of mud and rocks had battered down a protective wall, invaded a bedroom and plunged through the floor to the garage below.

The mudslides ruptured a water main, adding to the flood.

John Clement, Malibu’s director of public works, said that in most cases sandbag barriers proved inadequate.

“There was no way we could build a Hoover Dam to deal with this,” he said.

Malibu City Manager David Carmany said one disaster relief worker had remarked that the town’s ZIP code should be changed to 911.

Gary Silverston was using a rented skip-loader to scoop mud from his home on Las Flores Drive. A mudslide had slammed into the house during the night, converting his sunken living room into an indoor wading pool and collapsing his bedroom floor into the cellar.

“I’d like everyone to wipe their feet before they come in,” Silverston’s wife, Diana, said with a wry grin. “If you look at this in a lighthearted way, it is less traumatizing.”

“The bedroom is now in the basement,” Gary Silverston said. “We have to go in a different door when we go to sleep now.”

Despite the damage, Silverston was optimistic, predicting that the family could reoccupy the home within six weeks.

“I have an advantage,” he said. “I am a builder.”

A year ago, Les Thompson, 54, lost part of his Las Flores Canyon home in a landslide. Then, in October, the rest of the house burned to the ground in the brush fires.

On Tuesday, he was piling sandbags around the front of a house on PCH owned by Jim and Marlyne O’Toole, who left on a trip to South Africa a few hours before the rains began Monday.

“They helped me last year, so I’m helping them now,” Thompson said.

Tom Neuwirth, whose beachfront house stands on pilings across from Big Rock, spent most of Tuesday morning shoveling mud away from his garage.

“We kept the water out of the house with towels and buckets,” said Neuwirth, whose son, Adam, was helping out. “I stayed awake until I could see the stars, then I went to sleep. Had it rained much more, we would have been in trouble. But it all kind of pales when you compare it to what is happening in Bosnia.”

In Altadena, county public works crews assembled to begin cleaning up after an avalanche of mud and debris slid down fire-denuded slopes, burst through sandbag barriers and cut off several streets, briefly trapping more than a dozen residents in their houses.

Homes in the area apparently escaped serious damage, so the principal tasks were clearing the roads and cleaning out debris basins in the gullies above the houses.

The mudflows triggered by Monday’s storm, which dumped about 1 1/2 inches of rain on the Altadena area, worried officials because storms dumping twice that much rain in a 24-hour period are common there. “If we got 3 or 4 inches of rain in a 24-hour period we would be in a lot of hurt across the whole fire area,” said Bob Dean, district manager of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service. “We wouldn’t be able to keep up with the debris coming down from the hills.”

“If Mother Nature has her way with us there’s nothing we can do,” said Gala Conrad, who has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years. “Yes, we try to protect our homes, but if she wants to take it back, she’ll get it.”

Officials said debris barriers above Pasadena Glen held back boulders up to eight feet in diameter. Below the glen, a debris basin was filled with sediment, trees and small boulders.

Crews clearing the basins will need at least four days of dry weather to clear away sediment washed off the mountain slopes into the debris, Dean said.

And that, the National Weather Service said, is probably what we will get.

Forecasters said skies should remain mostly clear at least through Sunday afternoon, when increasing cloudiness should bring a chance of rain by nightfall.

This week’s storm, which dropped more than 2 inches of rain in some parts of Southern California, left a two-day total of 0.67 of an inch in the gauge at the Los Angeles Civic Center, raising the season’s total there to 3.37 inches. That compares to a normal season’s total for the date of 8.72 inches.

Times correspondent Andrew LePage contributed to this story.

Sliding Canyons

On Tuesday, residents of Malibu and Altadena began to clean up after massive mudslides that invaded homes, buried streets and swept away cars.

TROUBLE SPOTS

Pacific Coast Highway: Closed between Malibu Canyon Road and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Malibu area: Just east of Big Rock, about 33 houses were surrounded by a sea of mud that entered more than half the homes. Mud was piled up against another 13 houses west of Big Rock. Malibu officials estimated damage in the city at $1.6 million.

Altadena: Two roads were cut off by mudslides that overflowed debris basins, briefly stranding a dozen residents.

The forecast: Sunny weather through Sunday.

UNSTABLE SOIL

Fire can make hillsides hydrophobic, or water-resistant, leading to runoff and erosion. When chaparral burns it produces a gas hat penetrates the ground, condensing as it cools, creating a waxy layer just beneath the surface.

1. When it rains: water enters soil through root channels and animal and insect burrows.

2. Absorption is stopped: 2-6 inches below surface at hydrophobic layer.

3. Water runs off: unable to soak in, water slides downhill, carrying soil along.

Ash: 1-2” thick

FUNNEL PHENOMENON

Steep at the top and narrow at the bottom, the canyons become channels for fast-moving debris flows. The larger the basin, such as Flores Canyon, the greater the amount of debris that has to squeeze through a narrow path to the ocean.

The worst-hit areas were along Pacific Coast Highway at Big Rock and below Las Flores and Tuna canyons.

Sources: Soil Conservation Service, California Department of Conservation Division of Mining and Geology

Research by JULIE SHEER