Residents Dig Out After Rain

As a film sound editor, Mike Clark has a ready illustration of the profound isolation of this unincorporated town of about 2,000.

“It’s so quiet here, my friends come up from L.A. to record the sound of a passing car,” he said, pressing one boot into a bank of mud in front of his storm-ravaged home. “You just can’t get that quiet down there. . . . We’re the best-kept secret in L.A. County.”

Only the sounds of flowing water and scraping shovels broke the stillness Tuesday as residents of one of the areas hardest hit by Monday’s storm dug out their homes from layers of mud and removed tree branches and rocks from flood-scalped gardens and lawns.

Damage, though not yet tallied by any government agency, was estimated by residents to be well into five figures.

Not a mighty sum in Malibu perhaps. But despite often spectacular damage Monday, Val Verde is the anti-Malibu. No endangered mansions with stunning ocean views to draw TV crews. No bureaucrats furrowing their brows as the waves crashed ashore and rocks tumbled onto coastal highways.

No one interviewed here expects to be helped by insurance. Residents of the middle-income, multiethnic town three miles northwest of Santa Clarita once known as the “black Palm Springs” said they will have to rely on federal or state disaster aid, if any.

The worst time for Val Verde was Monday afternoon, when a hillside gave way, sending mud crashing through the homes of Clark and a neighbor, rendering the structures uninhabitable for at least a month. Dennis Morefield, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Building and Safety, said inspectors had not “yellow-tagged” any other unstable structures in Val Verde.

Chocolate-colored water and silt filled many of the town’s narrow streets Tuesday, piled several feet thick in some places. Monday’s flooding and mounting debris forced the closure of the main roads running through Val Verde, keeping school buses away. Morefield estimated that nearly two-thirds of the roughly 70 roads closed countywide were in the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

Storm recovery took on a familiar feel. Neighbors helped each other lay sandbags across denuded yards, steering overflowing creeks clear of the satellite dishes and trailers sandwiched between modest bungalows.

Cooperation has been central to the Santa Clarita Valley hamlet since its founding in 1924 as a resort town for black Los Angeles residents. Hundreds of families once vacationed here, enjoying cookouts, parades and horseback riding in the rolling hills.

“People help each other out,” said Lupe Hilario, 19, leaning on the handle of his shovel. “My mother, my cousins . . . everybody’s here.”

In the San Fernando Valley on Tuesday, city officials were also concerned about state and federal disaster aid. They led representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration on a tour of dozens of the area’s hardest-hit locations, to help them determine whether the region will be added to a list of 31 California counties that have been declared federal disaster areas.

City officials voiced concern Tuesday that Los Angeles has not yet been declared a disaster area, citing the now-infamous site of the West Hills mudslide that damaged five homes.

“We’re worried about this delay and the impact it will have on the West Hills homes,” said R.K. Bob Canfield, the city’s emergency preparedness coordinator, who conducted the tour.

“The city’s damage may not all be in one place, but those homeowners in West Hills are no less victims than anyone else in the state.”

In addition to the West Hills site, the group surveyed mudslide damage at homes from Woodland Hills to Studio City. By late Tuesday morning, they had reached the Woodland Hills home of drummer Rikki Rockett, known for his work with the glam-rock group Poison, where part of a hillside slid.

When a concerned homeowner asked the officials whether she and her husband qualify for federal assistance, Canfield explained that it will depend on whether the region is declared a federal disaster area.

“Only if that happens can we get the kind of assistance that these people need,” Canfield said.

In Universal City, a sinkhole up to 9 feet across and 10 feet deep opened Tuesday about 60 feet off Lankershim Boulevard on an embankment alongside the Los Angeles River.

The hole is above the Metro Rail subway tunnels being built 60 feet underground, but Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said they could not tell whether it was related to the construction. MTA officials are still trying to recover from the battering their image took when an 80-foot-wide sinkhole engulfed Hollywood Boulevard in 1995.

“It’s definitely rain-related,” said MTA spokesman Jim Smart. But Greg Scott, director of the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Maintenance, said the city had not yet determined the cause of the sinkhole, including whether it was rain-related. Such sinkholes are often caused by sewer or water line breaks, officials said.

Santa Clarita city officials said a large sinkhole on Bouquet Canyon Road near Valencia Boulevard forced the closure of that city’s busiest roadway, traveled by 55,000 motorists a day. Los Angeles County workers plan to work around the clock to repair the damage within 10 days, at an expected cost of $500,000.

Work progressed on clearing away mud that shut down the Lancaster-Los Angeles commuter rail line. Metrolink officials said they would resume partial service today, but trains would not stop at the Vincent Grade/Acton or Lancaster stations. Full service is expected to resume Thursday.

The four key dams in the San Fernando Valley area held steady, according to their operators, controlling huge volumes of water that could have made flooding much worse.

Two of the local dams did reach capacity levels, however.

Big Tujunga Dam in Angeles National Forest north of La Canada Flintridge filled to overflowing, pouring out 3,880 cubic feet of water a second Monday, a picturesque sight worthy of tourist cameras against the background of the San Gabriel Mountains.

By Tuesday afternoon the rate was down to 1,280 cubic feet per second.

Pacoima Dam, built in 1929, crested Monday, spilling water at 3,300 cubic feet per second. The overflow dropped to 900 cubic feet Tuesday.

The best known dam in the Valley, Sepulveda Dam in Encino, did not reach even a record level during the recent storm. The water level peaked Monday 29 feet short of the dam top, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, which built and operates it. On Feb. 16, 1980, it came within 18 feet of the top.

Times staff writers Jeff Leeds, Julie Tamaki and David Colker contributed to this story.

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