Residents stock up on sandbags ahead of weekend rain
Southern California is getting ready for rain, and some residents woke up bright and early Friday to stock up on sandbags.
Eugene Escarrega, a Pasadena resident, spoke with Eyewitness News as he was grabbing his bags at a local fire station.
"The problem is right now is there's a big pile of debris in front of the drain system," he said. "I'm afraid if they don't get that today, by tomorrow, we're going to have a problem. If the water comes straight down, it's going to come right through my front door."
Mark Pestrella, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, said crews are preparing for the potential rain, deploying K-rails, sandbags and other devices "to manage sediment and debris.''
In the Eaton Fire area, crews were using Santa Anita racetrack as a staging area for supplies, and on the west side near the Palisades Fire, Santa Monica Airport was being used as a base of operations.
Pestrella urged burn-area residents who have returned to their homes to plan to stay indoors during the storm event, saying that while officials do not expect the rain to cause damaging flows that would mandate evacuations, sediment and debris will still likely flow into streets.
He said people who live in homes that back up to recently burned hillside areas can have county crews come to their homes and inspect their properties to see if any mitigation efforts are needed to protect against possible landslides. But he warned: "If ... there is a slope behind your home that is burned and it's maybe 20 feet or more in height, and it is adjacent to the property in any direction, your best bet is not to be in that home when it rains.''
The county Department of Public Works is the lead agency coordinating fire-debris-removal efforts following the Palisades and Eaton blazes, in conjunction with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency -- which is handling the first-phase removal of hazardous wastes -- and the Army Corps of Engineers, which will oversee physical debris removal.
Officials with those agencies noted that preliminary work on removal has begun, but mainly with assessments and establishing temporary storage areas for debris being removed.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive order Tuesday to expedite fire debris removal and install reinforcement barriers and sandbags with rain in the forecast for burn areas as early as this weekend. Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that state has dispatched "highly trained teams and specialized equipment'' to the Southland to ensure protection from possible rain-sparked debris flows.
To learn more on how to get sandbags in L.A. County, visit the LA County Public Works Sandbags Dashboard.
To learn more on the Los Angeles Fire Department's sandbag distribution efforts, click here.
City News Service, Inc. contributed to this report.
