A rumbling. A groan. A wicked sound. Then a wall of mud and water brings destruction
OAK GLEN, Calif. — Here in this tiny mountain community dotted with apple orchards east of Yucaipa, a flood had gutted a clapboard house that abutted a creek.
Sagging to one side, the home’s doors and windows were smashed out and broken beams littered the frontyard.
The creek’s banks had overrun, washing clay, rocks and other debris onto the main thoroughfare, Oak Glen Road, that crews were working Monday afternoon to clear.
Men with chainsaws cut up and carried off downed trees in front of the family-run orchards that advertised pick-your-own apples and American Revolution reenactments.
Blackened and wizened trees clung to the hillsides that ringed Oak Glen, and signs warned of an increased risk of flooding in areas that had burned in past wildfires.
Officials said numerous debris flows and downed power lines from Tropical Storm Hilary had damaged at least two bridges in the area.
Jane O’Donnell was working with her husband, Hayden, to brace their two-acre apple orchard against the storm Sunday evening when she heard what sounded “like a train was coming through.”
A culvert that winds through Oak Glen, a tiny community dotted with family-owned orchards and bed-and-breakfasts, was deluged with a slurry of rainwater, rocks and sediment.
The noise it made as it tumbled downstream, toward the homes and farms of Oak Glen, is a sound O’Donnell said she will never forget.
“It was a rumbling, a groaning. It sounded wicked.”
The culvert overflowed just before sundown, she said.
“We got out right in time. The roar was coming and I said, ‘We got to go.’”
O’Donnell learned that shortly after they evacuated, the main road leading in and out of Oak Glen flooded. Water cascaded down from hillsides left bare from past wildfires, she said, overwhelming the creeks and culverts dug to keep the town from flooding.
“There’s nothing to block it,” she said of the water that streamed downhill. “There’s no trees left.” O’Donnell’s husband was surveying the damage Monday morning to their orchard in Oak Glen, Willowbrook Farm, as well as another orchard in nearby Cherry Valley, Goodie Farm.
The storm had dumped rocks and sediment across both properties, damaging many of the trees just before the start of the apple picking season, she said. Oak Glen is a tourist designation, offering not just 100-year-old orchards but bed-and-breakfasts and wedding venues, O’Donnell said.
Some of the buildings were badly damaged in the storm. Many of the farm owners in Oak Glen live on their land and chose to shelter in place rather than evacuate, O’Donnell said.
Their farm animals — Delilah, a pig; Comet, a miniature donkey; and Star, a miniature horse — were battened down in their pens and rode out the storm safely.
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