Muddy Waters, part 2

Amazing video of mudslide up on Canyonside Drive, about 2 miles from us. 

This was taken on January 18th and got plenty of airtime on the news networks.

This morning, as I walked out to the mom van to run an errand at the school, two L.A. County Sheriff's cruisers went zooming up the street in front of me. 9:00, I realized: time to start the evacuations. Being a nosy parker, I went looking for them after I was done; sure enough, there they were on Pine Glen, one of those streets I was talking about yesterday. On one side are homes, on the other side the sheer face of a saturated hillside threatening to surrender to gravity.

Three cruisers were parked on the side of the street and I saw two officers walking up to two different houses, clipboards in their hands. If residents refused to evacuate, they had to sign documents to that effect. These evacuations are serious. If you're popped from your home, you're popped until Monday. Unlike the fires, the mudslides are impossible to predict and you can't just put 'em out. And as you can see in the video up there, it's not just mud, either. There can be some pretty big rocks coming your way.

I had found the list of addresses being evacuated last night on the818now.com, and ran into the bedroom to tell Dan. "Holy smokes! These are right up the street!" One mile up the hill. Doesn't sound like much, but it's a pretty long way for mud to travel, so my concern was for my old neighbors and other families I know.

Then at 10:30 the phone rang. It was a robocall from the elementary school, assuring us that school would be in session in spite of the evacuations. 5 minutes later we got the same call from the middle school. We want to provide the children with a stable environment during this difficult time, they said, and we know our community will pull together to support those families affected by the evacuations. 

There's a low, gloomy feeling of unease around here. I keep comparing it to the hurricanes in Florida: you know they're coming, but you don't know what the damage is gonna be. It's about 11 a.m. as I write this, and the next wave should be arriving in an hour or so. The weather dudes are saying this will be the biggest one, and we may get up to 7 inches of rain today. Today! In one day! And it's going to be really bad when school is letting out, too.

And me without any rain boots. Stay tuned...