L.A. hillsides are ‘a big muddy mess’ after storm brings mudslides and flooding
In Los Angeles hillside communities on Tuesday morning, residents were assessing the mess left by pounding rain, flooding and mudslides.
While the damage was scattered and far from catastrophic, there was a lot of cleaning up to do, along with anxiety about the next storm.
In a neighborhood that straddles Universal City and Studio City, Dave Eichhorn awoke from a few hours of sleep to find his backyard, on the side of a steep hill, covered in mud.
Patio and lounge chairs, along with a table, were buried under a few feet of it.
Yet the film editor considered himself fortunate. His house remained dry, and he estimated the damage to be $3,000 to $4,000.
“I’ve got a big muddy mess to deal with, but it could have been worse,” he said.
Back-to-back storms across California have killed 17, including two motorists who died in a crash, and caused damage that could cost over $1 billion.
Eichhorn walked about 30 steps down the hill to Fredonia Drive, which had been blocked off by city workers around 9 a.m.
Across from Eichhorn’s house, neighbors on lower ground saw water up to their car door handles, mud several feet deep and parts of the hillside collapsing onto the street.
“We haven’t had this intensity of rain in a couple of years, but this mudslide is coming from a construction site on the hill,” Eichhorn said.
He called neighbors and checked in with his landlord to see if anyone needed help. People shared bags for trash and sandbags, while others asked about supplies.
Some major roads remain closed because of flooding, rock slides and debris flows, while crews have responded to a significant mudslide in Studio City and a major sinkhole in Chatsworth.
Some wrapped their sneakers in plastic bags to keep their feet dry as they surveyed the damage.
Nearby in Studio City, municipal workers with shovels and picks attempted to clear debris and mud at least 3 feet high from the intersection of Wrightwood Lane and Skyhill Drive.
A group of neighbors clutching umbrellas observed from a distance as the river of mud pushed several large logs, a pair of trash cans, basketballs and other objects in all directions.
Around the corner, a Mini Cooper parked on Fredonia Drive was submerged to the top of its tires. A garage protected by sandbags was also flooded.
Sarah Hunt, who lives nearby on higher ground, was taking her 13-year-old German shepherd on a rain-soaked walk.
She was saddened to hear that a friend’s music studio, about a block from her home, had flooded.
“I have several friends whose homes and properties flooded or had a mudslide,” Hunt said. “I still think we’re lucky that no one was hurt.”
Heavy downpours Monday evening and Tuesday morning flooded the swimming pool of the Universal City apartment building where Eldon Daetweiler, 64, lives.
Because the building is on higher ground, it sustained little damage from rain or mud. But as Daetweiler, a real estate broker, toured the neighborhood, he saw that others were not as fortunate.
“This is the worst I’ve seen in the four years since I returned to the area,” he said. “I lived here in the 1990s, and we had El Niño then. I don’t remember as much damage.”
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