Heavy rains prompt evacuation warnings for burned LA neighborhoods

LOS ANGELES (CN) — Heavy rains arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday, creating a high risk of mudslides and debris flows in the neighborhoods leveled by the wildfires that tore through the city in January.

The LA Fire Department issued evacuation warnings for parts of the Pacific Palisades— the hilly enclave where the largest of the wildfires destroyed thousands of homes — as well as for parts of Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley where smaller fires burned the vegetation and left the soil vulnerable to mudslides.

Specific addresses within these areas are especially at high risk, according to fire officials, and those residents will be issued evacuation orders.

The National Weather Service warned of flash floods and debris flows, in particular in and around the burn scars from the wildfires, as the brunt of the storm moves through LA County on Thursday afternoon. As much as 1 inch of rain per hour could fall.

“If you are advised to evacuate, please don’t leave it to chance,” LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said at a press conference Wednesday. “Do not risk your life.”

The wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and in Altadena, east of downtown LA, burned much of the brush, trees and other vegetation that hold the soil together on the hillsides overlooking those communities. Without this vegetation, heavy rains can cause devastating mudslides as happened in 2018 when the town of Montecito near Santa Barbara was severely damaged by a series of mudflows after the massive Thomas Fire.

The Pacific Coast Highway, the main road that runs along the Pacific Palisades and that connects LA and Malibu, was closed Thursday as a precaution.

The Palisades Fire and Eaton Fire in Altadena, which broke out Jan. 7 fueled by extreme Santa Ana winds combined with bone-dry vegetation, were the most destructive natural disasters in LA County’s history, prompting nearly 200,000 people to flee their homes and destroying more than 10,000 structures in the two communities. Twenty-nine people died in the fires.

Currently, the Army Corps of Engineers is helping state and local agencies to clear the enormous amounts of debris left by the fires.

Follow @edpettersson