latest reports suggest that residents of a southern California mountain community near the Eaton fire burn scar dug out of roads submerged in sludge on Friday after the strongest storm of the year swept through the area, unleashing debris flows and muddy messes in several neighborhoods recently torched by wildfires.
Water, debris and boulders rushed down the mountain in the city of Sierra Madre on Thursday night, trapping at least one car in the mud and damaging several home garages with mud and debris. Bulldozers on Friday were cleaning up the mud-covered streets in the city of 10,000 people.
“It happened very quickly but it was very loud and you could even hear the ground or feel the ground shaking,” Bull Duvall, who has lived in Sierra Madre for 28 years, said of the debris flows.
Sierra Madre officials issued evacuation orders for areas affected by the Eaton fire, warning that fire, police and public works personnel would not enter areas experiencing active mud and debris flows and anyone who remained in a home under evacuation orders would need to shelter in place until areas were deemed safe for city personnel to enter.
Residents also had to evacuate during the Eaton fire, which destroyed 15 homes in the community.
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California is in the midst of its rainy season and strong storms are not necessarily unusual for this time of year. But the damaging weather timed so closely after the deadly wildfires that left communities across Los Angeles in ruins last month has increased the impacts.
It’s a foreboding sign of the risks posed when fire dangers lurk throughout the year. The climate crisis has increased the likelihood of compounding extremes and the risks will continue to rise as the world warms.
While the heavy rains from the storm hitting the region began to ease on Thursday night, the risk of rock- and mudslides on wildfire-scarred hillsides continued on Friday since dangerous slides can strike even after rain stops, particularly in scorched areas where vegetation that helps keep soil anchored has burned away.
One member of the Los Angeles fire department was in a vehicle when it went into the ocean in Malibu but was able to exit with minor injuries, a department spokesperson, Erik Scott, said on the social platform X.
In Pacific Palisades on Friday, some residents washed their mud-covered driveways, and bulldozers worked to clear mud-coated roads not far from where, just weeks ago, officials moved abandoned cars after people fleeing last month’s wildfires got stuck in traffic and fled on foot.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
