475 mudslides plague LA area
Up to foot of rain slams city
LOS ANGELES — One of the wettest storms in Southern California history unleashed at least 475 mudslides in the Los Angeles area after dumping more than half the amount of rainfall the city typically gets in a season in just two days, and officials warned Tuesday that the threat was not over yet.
“Our hillsides are already saturated. So even not-veryheavy rains could still lead to additional mudslides,” Mayor Karen Bass said during an evening news conference. “Even when the rain stops, the ground may continue to shift.”
Officials expressed relief that the storm hadn’t yet killed anyone or caused a major catastrophe in Los Angeles despite its size and intensity, with nearly 400 trees toppling. There were seven deaths reported elsewhere, including several people crushed by fallen trees in Northern California. Someone trying to enter the United States was swept up by a swollen Tijuana River channel and died early Tuesday as the California-Mexico border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Though the rain was tapering off, forecasters extended a flood watch through early today, warning the ground was too filled with water to hold much more after back-to-back atmospheric rivers walloped California in less than a week. Another heavy burst of rain is expected this evening before the region begins to dry out, said Tyler Kranz, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Bass said the city is now looking toward recovery and will seek federal aid including emergency vouchers for homeless people in shelters. It may see if it can qualify for FEMA money to help people whose homes were damaged in hillside communities where insurance companies won’t cover. How many people there are could take a while to count.
As of Tuesday, seven buildings had been deemed uninhabitable, officials said. Another 10 buildings were yellow-tagged, meaning residents could go back to get their belongings but could not stay there because of the damage.
“Hopefully no more homes will be damaged, but it’s too early to tell,” Bass said.
Dion Peronneau was trying to get her artwork and books out of her home, which was smashed into by a mudslide that knocked her sliding glass doors off their frame and came pouring into her home of 25 years.
“Eight feet of mud is pressed up against my window that is no longer there,” she said. “They put up boards to make sure no more mud can come in.”
Earlier Tuesday, the National Weather Service issued a rare tornado warning for San Diego County. The warning was quickly cancelled, however, with forecasters explaining that the storm no longer appeared capable of producing a twister even if it briefly turned some San Diego streets into rivers.
Four people were killed in Northern California after the storm came ashore over the weekend with strong winds that toppled trees. They included a 63-year-old woman who was found dead Tuesday under a large tree in her backyard in Fair Oaks, Sacramento County officials reported.
The California Highway Patrol said a 69-year-old man died Monday after his truck went down an embankment and filled with water in Yucaipa, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles. Another accident in nearby Fontana killed a 23-year-old man after the car he was in crashed into a tow truck in the rain, the agency said.
Crews rescued people from swift-moving water in various parts of Southern California, including 16 people and five cats in Los Angeles County alone, authorities said.
The storm smashed or approached many rain and wind records across the state, with downtown Los Angeles recording its third-wettest two-day stretch since recordkeeping began in the 1870s. Between 6 and 12 inches of rain fell over the Los Angeles area.
All the water brought one silver lining: helping to boost often-strained water supplies, just two years after nearly all California was plagued by a devastating drought. Marty Adams, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said more than 1 billion gallons of rain were captured for groundwater and local supplies.
This latest storms follow a string of atmospheric rivers that pummeled the state last year, leading to at least 20 deaths.
In 2018, a mudslide in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, destroyed 130 homes and killed 23 people, making it one of the deadliest in California history.