By the time Dale Reavis considered evacuating his La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge home during the storms that hit Southern California earlier this month, it was too late. He was trapped. <\/p>\n
A torrent of mud flowed down the street in front of his house on Ocean View Boulevard, and mud and debris raged down a canyon riverbed\u00a0behind the property, Reavis recalled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the flood of mud come down and hit homes and cars,\u201d said Reavis, 50.<\/p>\n
About 3\u00bd feet of mud swept into his frontyard, tearing up the landscaping and piling up against the\u00a0entryway, causing some muddy water to leak inside. At one point, Reavis climbed a tree in an attempt to stay out of harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t drive out. I was stuck,\u201d he said. \u201cI was pretty scared, and I really didn\u2019t like that feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
So as more rain approached the region Friday, Reavis was not taking any chances. He spent Friday morning boarding up windows and fortifying his property with sandbags.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m hanging out now to see how things go, but I would definitely consider leaving,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Evacuation orders have been issued for almost 200 homes in La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge and La Crescenta ahead of two storms expected to sweep into the area late Friday night\u00a0and Saturday morning and again overnight Sunday into Monday. Residents were ordered to leave their homes by 4 p.m. Friday.<\/p>\n
But Murdock Allen planned to stay put.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no intention of leaving,\u201d said Allen, 77, a retired phone company manager. \u201cWe\u2019re safe enough here that I don\u2019t believe we\u2019re in any imminent danger.\u201d<\/p>\n
The front of his home on Normanton Street off Ocean View Boulevard in La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge stands 12 feet above street level. During mudslides earlier this month, the house remained intact, but the force of the mud flows pushed aside K-rails, or concrete barriers, and entered the driveway, destroying Allen\u2019s Dodge Dakota truck.<\/p>\n
Allen said he would not bother setting out sandbags because the 3-by-5-foot sandbag wall he\u00a0built last time to protect his driveway was washed away. <\/p>\n
An unexpectedly powerful rainstorm unleashed a torrent of mud Feb. 6 that inundated 43 houses and left La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge’s northernmost neighborhood awash in boulders and debris. Thirty-one homes, primarily in the Paradise Valley development, were engulfed in mud and debris, and 12 had structural damage. About 25 cars were sent smashing into walls and trees. <\/p>\n
The McLaughlin family on Ocean View Boulevard\u00a0was ready Friday to hunker down. Despite fighting a deluge of mud that engulfed their home during the recent mudslides, Heather McLaughlin said she and her father would likely stay put, though she would rather her mother leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t stay here and something happens, no one will be here to try and protect the house. No one will be here to try to prevent more damage,\u201d said McLaughlin, 23, an elementary school teacher.<\/p>\n
The McLaughlins home took on about a foot of mud, and they have spent the last couple of weeks trying to make it habitable again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we had evacuated for the mudslide, we wouldn\u2019t have been here to quickly get the mud out of our home,\u201d McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n
— Ann M. Simmons <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By the time Dale Reavis considered evacuating his La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge home during the storms that hit Southern California earlier this month, it was too late. He was trapped. A torrent of mud flowed down the street in front of his house on Ocean View Boulevard, and mud and debris raged down a canyon riverbed\u00a0behind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5470,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340342","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\/5470"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}