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Mudslides sweep away cars, assault homes near LA
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-02-07 10:50
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 Los Angeles County firefighters examine a flood-damaged home near Ocean View Boulevard, Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010 in La Canada Flintridge, Calif. [Agencies] |
"It's surreal," Markgraf said as she surveyed her childhood home with a video camera, documenting the damage for insurance purposes. "It's nothing we expected."
The house next door was also filled with several feet of mud. The handlebars of an exercise bike could be seen sticking out the brown sludge and a kidney-shaped swimming pool was filled to the brim with mud and rocks. Couches, televisions and records were strewn about the buried yard.
Several residents said they woke up around 4 a.m. to the sound of crashing and rain pounding on their rooftops.
"It was like thunder," said Dave Becica, whose house was undamaged. "I said, I hope that's not the mountain coming down. It was the mountain."
Across the street, his neighbor was less fortunate. All the windows along the front of the house had been blown out and mud had swept through the house. Shoveling away what he could, the man declined to be interviewed.
Leslie Fernandes, 49, said he chose not evacuate in order to try to divert flowing debris flow from his house.
"I heard a roar and a rumble and I went to look outside and there were cars swept down the street," said Fernandes said.
A retaining wall on Fernandes' property burst and 2 feet of mud was piled on his driveway, topped with a layer of ash from last summer's wildfire.
"I'm glad I didn't leave otherwise we'd really be in trouble," he said.
Neighbor Olivia Brown said she saw cars being washed down the street at speeds of up to 40 mph.
"It was going so fast, boulders were moving like they were pebbles," Brown said.
More than a foot of debris was seen in at least 10 houses. Family photographs, toys, furniture items and other items were dotted throughout the debris that gushed into yards and streets. At least five homes had been "red-tagged" by county inspectors, meaning they were unsafe to enter.
At one red-tagged home, crews dug by hand through at least 4 feet of mud to try and find the source of a natural gas leak.
Half way along Ocean View Boulevard, where the hillside road flattens out, a jumble of 12 cars and trucks had come to a stop after being washed down the road. A silver sport utility vehicle lay on top of a flattened Toyota, both completely mangled.
Another of the wrecked cars belonged to Kelly Schroeder, who had parked it Friday night outside her house a quarter mile up the road.
"I'm not going to complain, because our neighbors are in such a bad state," Schroeder said.
By midmorning, the rain had tapered off, but forecasters said another storm system was expected later Saturday.
The evacuations were ordered in foothill areas of Sierra Madre, La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta and some parts of Acton.
"We've got crews going door to door to tell residents to get out," said Los Angeles County Fire Insp. Frederick Stowers. "Some of the roads up there are a complete mess."
Evacuation centers were set up at La Canada High School and at a recreation center in Sierra Madre. The Red Cross was working to establish other locations to shelter displaced residents.
Crews used bulldozers and other heavy equipment to clear masses of mud and rocks that blocked suburban streets and intersections.
