\nAlthough a layer of muck had flowed into his garage and around his home, La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge resident Mike Thomassian, 62, on Sunday counted himself lucky. The interior of his house had been spared from the rain-induced mud that flooded his neighborhood. <\/p>\n
But nine homes in the foothill area suffered enough damage to be red-tagged, which means they\u2019re partially collapsed and uninhabitable.\n<\/p>\n
\nWith crumbling walls, sunken roofs, shattered windows and mud-filled living rooms, the structures are in a precarious position with more rain forecast for Tuesday evening.\n<\/p>\n
\nAlthough weather specialists expect only a couple of inches of rainfall, L.A. County Department of Public Works spokesman Bob Spencer said residents needed to stay on heightened alert.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always a worry when we don\u2019t have time to clean the debris basins out,\u201d Spencer said.\n<\/p>\n
\nSince last month\u2019s storm — which cost the county about $20 million — Spencer said 300 dump trucks have operated around the clock to empty the debris basins. Those loads are dumped into three sediment basins in the foothills. The county is in the midst of getting a permit for a fourth sediment basin, and officials asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Sunday morning to expedite the approval process, which can take years.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s needed badly in the near future based on the amount of sediment and debris that\u2019s coming out of the forest,\u201d Spencer said.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWe\u2019re trying to calculate how much room we have left in the three sediment areas we\u2019re using. If the debris keeps coming out at the rate that it is, we need a fourth one very quickly.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n— Corina Knoll and Ruben Vives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Although a layer of muck had flowed into his garage and around his home, La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge resident Mike Thomassian, 62, on Sunday counted himself lucky. The interior of his house had been spared from the rain-induced mud that flooded his neighborhood. But nine homes in the foothill area suffered enough damage to be red-tagged, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4678,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}