With rain in forecast, a region is on edge

Santa Barbara County officials track storm that could further affect barren hillsides.

Still recovering from January’s deadly mudslides, Santa Barbara County authorities are monitoring a storm system that is expected to dump light rain beginning Monday over the barren hills charred by last year’s Thomas fire.

Only about half an inch of rain is expected to fall Monday through Wednesday, nothing like the heavy rainfall that triggered the massive debris flows in Montecito last month, according to the National Weather Service.

Still, rainfall amounts could vary, with the potential for brief bursts of more intense showers, said weather service meteorologist Kathy Hoxsie.

Santa Barbara County officials are asking people who live in the debris flow areas to sign up online to receive emergency alerts in case heavier showers develop. Public evacuations are not anticipated, county officials said Sunday.

“The difficulty when you have a burn area is that any amount of rain always makes you nervous,” Hoxsie said. “We are not expecting much, but it is still nerveracking.”

The rain is expected to be the heaviest Monday afternoon into Tuesday morning, she said.

County officials last week told people living in the debris path to remain vigilant and pay close attention to county alerts. The county has put an interactive map online showing what areas are at high or extreme risk of damage from a flow.

Rob Lewin, director of the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management, said last week that the public should not be “fooled” into thinking that the mountains and burned watersheds have been flushed of the massive boulders, rocks and other debris that could come raging down in a rainstorm.

“The mountains and the canyons are still loaded with rocks, sediment and other debris,” he said when county officials announced new evacuation terminology.

Santa Barbara County sheriff’s officials said they will no longer use “voluntary” in their evacuation alerts after concerns that the warnings they issued before devastating mudslides ravaged Montecito last month were ineffective in getting people to leave.

Many residents in neighborhoods under voluntary evacuation warnings decided to stay. Some assumed the threat was overblown just weeks after the Thomas fire triggered similar calls to evacuate.

The Jan. 9 slides in Montecito left more than 20 people dead and destroyed dozens of homes. Scientists who surveyed the area days after the slides said that a predicted rainstorm’s unexpected ferocity combined with the community’s unusual geological makeup to maximize the devastation.