Southern California is bracing for another day of potential mudslides in areas burned by last month’s wildfires after a Thursday deluge prompted evacuation orders, whisked a fire department vehicle into Malibu waters, and covered parts of a coastal highway in multiple feet of muck.
Thursday’s deluge caused significant flooding, mud and debris flows, but the National Weather Service office in Los Angeles warned “mud and rock slides can still happen well after the rain has ended.”
Flood alerts in the Los Angeles area were lifted by Thursday evening. Evacuation orders and warnings are in place through 2 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET) Friday in recently burned areas, including the area of the Palisades Fire that stretched more than 20,000 acres and destroyed thousands of homes last month, the Sunset Fire area east and south of Runyon Canyon and near the burn scars of the Eaton Fire, which burned more than 14,000 acres, to the east.
Dramatic video showed the moment a Los Angeles Fire Department member scrambled out of his vehicle as it was swept into the ocean by fast-moving debris along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu around 5 p.m. Thursday. He was able to get to safety with minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital as a precaution, LAFD spokesperson Erik Scott said.
A security guard was rescued by the Los Angeles County Fire Department on Thursday after his vehicle got caught in floodwaters at the Catch Basin on Chaney Trail in Altadena. Authorities said the man was suffering from hypothermia and was transported to a hospital, but crews were unable to access his sunken car.
Fast-rushing debris flows raced down the streets of hilly residential communities in Altadena and Pasadena in the storm, according to videos by the Altadena Mountain Rescue.
The downpour buried some homes and cars in mud, submerged streets, and flooded stores on Melrose Avenue in other parts of Los Angeles. In Hollywood Hills, a debris flow spewed 8 inches of mud across the famous Mulholland Drive, NBC Los Angeles reported.
As of Friday morning, portions of the Pacific Coast Highway remain shut down as bulldozers clear debris, and Malibu has closed schools for the time being.
Thursday’s storm marked the strongest of the season thus far. Together with midweek showers, it led to rainfall totals for the 48-hour period ending at 5 a.m. PT Friday of: 5.82 inches of rain in the San Gabriel Dam, 3.85 inches at Sepulveda Canyon at Mulholland Drive, 2.87 inches in downtown Los Angeles and 3.12 inches at Mount Wilson near the site of the Eaton Fire, according NBC Los Angeles.
As many as 4 million people remain under flood watches across California on Friday morning, but the rain is already waning in intensity and will gradually end today.
California’s weather comes as much of the nation was battered by a series of storms over the past two weeks that dumped snow and led to ice accumulations to the Midwest and the Northeast, as well as heavy rain in the Southeast.
