California
Severe
Storms and Mudslides
Teri Lepovitz
Even
as California's 2004 wildfires raged, state, scientists, forestry
officials and
other experts were already warning that residents who escaped 2004’s 10
infernos that they could fall victim to mudslides, floods and
landslides that
would follow. The wildfires scorched more than 750,000 acres of
southern California,
an area just slightly smaller that the U.S.
state of Rhode Island,
destroying
all vegetation on mountains and hillsides.
With
heavy California rain
falls this
winter, there was nothing to stop it from penetrating directly into the
soil. The result has been erosion,
mudslides and
excess water running off the hillsides, often causing flash flooding,
damage
and deaths in the communities below, such as La Conchita in Ventura
County and San
Bernardino’s Old
Waterman Canyon.
On March
24, 2005, The Eagle news reported that,
“The
past winter has brought uncharacteristic weather to many regions of the
United States.
., The most devastating weather has
affected Southern California, which was hit
with heavy
rains throughout February.”
By Monday, March 21st, certain areas of southern California had
received a near
record-breaking 46 inches of precipitation since July 1, making them
comparable
to other rain-soaked cities such as Portland,
Ore.,
and Seattle, which both receive around 37 inches of average yearly
rainfall,
according to the National Weather Service. In past weeks, California
has been hit particularly hard by a series of storms and snow melts
that caused
mudslides, flooding and unsafe conditions for travel.
California’s unusually wet weather
resulted from a combination of factors, including a weak El Niño
system that brought
a lot of moisture up from the tropics earlier in 2004, and a series of
low
pressure systems caused by the jet stream splitting that stalled right
of the
coast and brought waves of rain over L.A., according to Eric Boldt of
the
National Weather Service. Given the constant stream of storms, and with
March
still a part of California's wet season, it is
likely
that regions of California
will
break their 121-year-old records within the next few months. See: http://www.theeagleonline.com/news/2005/03/24/News/Mudslides.Torrential.Rain.Cause.Problems.In.California-901822.shtml
On January
14, 2005,
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that President Bush approved
his
request to include mudflows in the Federal disaster declaration for
Southern
California Fires. This increased the
availability of federal recovery aid to impacted individuals,
businesses and
public entities and extended the incident period to February 2. See: http://www.ca.gov/state/portal/myca_search_results.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0805464775.1112040183@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccjaddeelgkikicfngcfkmdffidfng.0&sSearchString=mudslides&submit=
On February
4, 2005,
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared a Severe
Storms,
Flooding, Debris Flows, and Mudslides incident in California
for the period of December
27, 2004
through January 11, 2005. This declaration made Individual Assistance
available to victims and households in Los Angeles
and Ventura Counties;
and Federal Public
Assistance
available to State and local governments and certain nonprofits for the
repair
or replacement of disaster-damaged facilities in Los Angeles,
Orange, Riverside, San
Bernardino, San Diego, Santa
Barbara,
and Ventura Counties. Additionally, State and local governments and
certain nonprofits in Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San
Bernardino, San
Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura Counties were designated eligible to
apply
for Hazard Mitigation Grant Program assistance to for mitigation
actions taken
to reduce long term risk to life and property from natural hazards. See: http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=16988
This disaster declaration was amended on
March 16th
to include: Kern County
for Individual Assistance; and, Orange, Riverside,
San Bernardino, San Diego
and Santa Barbara Counties
for Individual Assistance (already designated for Public Assistance.)
Experts
accurately predicted that San Bernardino
neighborhoods at
the foot of the San Bernardino Mountains would
be the
worst hit because of the mountains’ rugged and steep slopes. See: http://www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=22737.
On March 23, FEMA announced it had earmarked an additional $1.2 million
for
flood control work, bringing total federal funding of repairs to public
works
facilities affected by the storms in San
Bernardino County
to $7 million. See: http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease.fema?id=17025.