Just five weeks ago, the Pacific Coast Expressway was suffocating from one of the most destructive fires in Los Angeles County’s history, burning shells once were onshore homes.
The legendary coastal road dissolved in the river of dirt and debris after a powerful rainstorm drove those burnt hills toward the ocean, turning the canyon into a river of dirt and rock on Friday.
Southern California is used to the cycle of drought and flooding, where the fires are followed by flooding and debris flow. But in recent weeks, the residents of the Pacific Palisades and Altadena burning areas have brought special climate whipping. The fire exploded in part because of the lack of winter rain, which made the landscape unusually dry in January. The rain finally came, but they brought a second wave of challenges. The damage from rainfall this week is negligible compared to the fire.
“It’s a punch,” said Captain Eric Scott, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. “There are a lot of dangerous materials that need to be removed and then the fire debris is removed, rapid rain and mud, and debris flows – all in a month and a half Inside.”
Los Angeles County Burning Scars on Friday, the consequences of a powerful storm that dumped rainwater in Los Angeles County’s burning scars, part of the Pacific Coast Expressway closed, a hill dissolved in muddy rocks and rocky rivers, blocking the canyon road, Snake through the foothills of the area.
At the peak of the storm, mudslides rushed into the streets of Altadena, causing people to run. Another slide on the San Bernardino Mountains Highway 330 buried the vehicle in the mud and pushed some lanes away.
In Malibu, a pile of muddy branches hit the fire department’s SUV, pushing the vehicle onto a cliff and entering the Pacific Ocean, where the driver climbed out, escaped and escaped without major damage surf. The remains of burnt houses and vehicles extending along the scenic coast are covered with sludge.
These are one of the crazy situations of a record-breaking atmospheric river explosion this week. The three-day rainfall and the backbone conditions that continue throughout the first half of the traditional wet season are evident, ultimately at the Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena levels. In a large-scale fire.
Fast fluctuations between strong wet and dangerous dry weather – Climate scientists call it “Hydrome Climate Whipping” – Rising. In California, it has played many times in recent years.
Dozens of atmospheric rivers brought record rainfall to California between winter 2022 and 2023, burying mountains in snow, releasing landslides and providing plenty of water for thirsty vegetation and farmland. After another wet winter, the greenery continues to flourish in the second year.
But 2024 brought record summers and lasted a long dry period during a typical rainy season, emitting dense vegetation and producing a fire-drying fuel that helped dangerous winds drive wildfires. The fire that tore through Los Angeles County in January was the most destructive and deadly in modern state history, and began in the driest winters in most Southern California.
“We may see a new phase of climate change, and we can actually observe and experience these larger extreme events more often,” said Steven Allison, professor of earth systems science at UC Irvine.
Usually, Southern California will see some rain before December, so the landscape is not dry enough to catch fire in early January. He said a drought that lasted until the winter continued and caused the high winds that followed, which was unusual.
“Now, we’re not super extreme, but soon after these fires, the rainfall was relatively high. It’s almost like three events piled up relatively rarely and happened briefly,” Allison said.
On Thursday, the strongest storm of the rainy season has been the first to slam the area, shattering decades-old rainfall records and hitting charred hillsides with intensity that it released powerful mudslides and caused Other damages.
In Oxnard, several mobile homes have been damaged by siding, storm ditch and roofs as the tornadoes pass through the country club’s mobile estate and the ocean Aire Mobile Homes Estates.
Los Angeles fire officials said 16 roads were still closed across the city on Friday due to debris flow. More than 3,500 outages and nearly 4,300 phone calls about public works for trees being cut down were reported.
Unlike the mild storm that struck Southern California last week, this atmospheric river is a soaker.
The storm poured 2.80 inches of rain in downtown Los Angeles Thursday, destroying the 1954 daily record of 2.71 inches. On the riverside, precipitation was 1.23 inches, and in 1980 it dropped by 0.93 inches. A few inches of rain fell, breaking the record of 1.53 inches in 2001.
Further north, at Paso Robles Airport, 1.45 inches of rain fell, breaking the 1.11 inches record in 1986. At Santa Maria Airport, rainfall fell 1.21 inches, breaking the record of less than an inch in 1986.
Over two days, Eaton and Palisades burn scars were close to 4 inches of rain, respectively. Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the Oxnard National Weather Service, said in some areas it fell in some areas at a speed that could cause dirt and debris to slide from burning hillsides.
If there is a silver lining in the storm, it is that rainfall may be enough to mitigate the risk of fire in Southern California — at least for a while.
“Informally, there should be a lot of rainfall, which will put us in lower seasons,” she said.
On Friday, along the sunset boulevard and the Pacific Coast Expressway, wet soil and smoke lingered in the air, and the bulldozer used its front blade to scalp the thin dirt that gradually flowed to the dirt that followed the sunset. It flows to the scenic coastal highway. A large amount of soil settled on the driveway of the herringbone gas station.
In the cold sun, the man wearing a neon green vest and a white helmet shoveled a small portion of the dirt that the bulldozer could not reach.
After dozens of rocks were spread across the debris, there was little Malibu Canyon Road near Pepperding University.
California Transportation Engineering officials will conduct a hazard assessment of the slopes of PCH in the coming days to understand the threat posed by hillsides after the storm. Officials remain concerned about eroded land, and even if the area is dry, rocks may fall.
“We need to clean the debris roads and see what could be damaged, not just the surface of the Pacific Coast highway, but also the components below. “It is not clear that the 8.5 miles of road will reopen.
As staff members work hard to clear the road, residents try to determine the damage caused to their properties by the rain.
Jennifer Gaulke wore a mask and blue latex gloves and drove along his own driveway along the house lane on Marquez Avenue in Pacific Palisades. She squeezed into the back of the garage filled with boxes, bins and long paddle boards.
The Palisades fire burned the corner of the garage and she was worried that the rain might be able to drip in it. But to her surprise, there was little harm from water except for some frame artwork and some boxes.
“It’s a miracle,” she said.
“Miracle” is a sentence she repeated when she visited a single-story house overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Her home suffered some damage in the Palisades fire: fruit on the backyard of orange trees, carport and corner of the master bedroom.
But somehow, it avoided the entire anger of shooting other houses near her. She tried to understand why.
