Neighbors prepare for possible mud below Station Fire

Oct. 13, 2009 | Susan Valot | KPCC

Some neighborhoods below the Station Fire were a flurry of activity Tuesday afternoon. People were doing last-minute preparations to try to keep mud and debris away from their homes, if the rain comes down as hard as forecasters predict. But the level of flurry depends on where you are.

Alan Freeman and his wife have lived in their La Crescenta home for 17 years. The massive Station Fire that burned nearly 250 square miles of the Angeles National Forest forced them to evacuate for the first time ever. And now, they’re prepping for their first possible post-fire mud flow. Freeman said he’s laid down about 20 sandbags to try to divert muddy runoff away from their home.

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"We’ve done a lot of work around the house to both help channel some of the potential flow and to seal up some openings that water might otherwise get into," Freeman said. "So for example, the little vent windows above the crawl space, I’ve sealed those with plastic and reinforced that with some blocks to hold them in place."

The hillsides closest to the family’s home are a couple of blocks away, so they feel pretty safe.

"In the immediate neighborhood, you can tell very little difference other than some sandbags in front of our house, but I’m not seeing other signs nearby," Freeman said. "If you go a few blocks further, you begin to get to the areas where the county authorities are putting up the concrete barriers to, you know, try to channel the flow, so, again you go a few blocks away, you see a lot of sandbagging, lots of K-rails, quite a bit of activity."

Freeman said he and his wife are packed and ready to go, should authorities declare a mandatory evacuation order. Even the carriers for their three cats are sitting by the door. Freeman said they learned from the Station Fire evacuation, when they forgot some stuff at home.

"For example, our secret stash of log-on passwords and ID's – we neglected to bring those with us the last time we went," Freeman said. "This time, we’ll have them with us. Last time, we didn’t use the safe deposit box in the bank down the hill. This time, we’ve put some more items in there."

Freeman said what worries he and his wife most is the history of mud and debris flows in the area. A smaller fire triggered major mudslides in La Crescenta and Montrose in the 1930s, which killed dozens of people and destroyed nearly 500 homes. A lot has changed since the infamous 1934 New Year’s Day Flood, but the mud in the mountains after fires hasn’t.

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