Sunday, December 14, 2008

LACDPW extends mudflow alert

LACDPW Extends Mudflow alert till 1600pm on 12/15/08 - received 4:44pm, posted 5:38pm
No change in status for Sierra Madre, but the alert has been extended through 4pm tomorrow. Here's the document.
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6 comments:

  1. UnknownDecember 15, 2008 at 10:10 AM

    We have been posting National Weather Service updates on The Sieera Madre Tattler blog. Seems that the Severe Weather Alerts have been extended past 11 AM.

    http://sierramadretattler.blogspot.com

    Mark

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  2. BillCoDecember 15, 2008 at 11:39 AM

    Yes, at 8:15am I had posted a notice on my SierraMudre.info website that the alerts from the LACDPW were extended until 4am tomorrow. That is my main source of notification. This blog will be used by folks wanting to report what they are seeing, but it is a second or third option for me. I will always update the SierraMudre site first. This site and the News Net site may not get updated at all, as occurred in this case.

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  3. UnknownDecember 15, 2008 at 1:51 PM

    Cool.

    Hey, I have a question about your Sierra Mudre blog. On there you identify the 4/26 Santa Anita Fire as the genesis of our mud flow problems, but make no mention of the mass defoliation of the One Carter Estates hillside site as also being a possible cause. I know there are more than a few people living around that mess who would have some trouble with the omission. Was it an inadvertant omission? or do you not believe that the One Carter Estates situation is a contributing factor.

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  4. BillCoDecember 15, 2008 at 5:01 PM

    That was an inadvertant omission on my part. I overlooked One Carter as a contributing factor. That said, I think it was a minor contributor. There is no doubt that the hillside at One Carter is worse off for having been scraped, but part of the area of concern on the property is burn area, which had nothing to do with what was scraped. Of the 292,000 cubic yards of debris that it is estimated will come off the hillsides if we have a ten-year storm (a storm the severity of which is only likely to happen every ten years), only 8,000 cy is expected to come from One Carter. That's less than 3% of the overall debris flow, and I have no idea what portion of that 3% will be from the scraped area and what percentage from the burn area. In addition to that, most of the 8,000 cy that may flow in the One Carter property, as I understand it, is expected to be caught up in the three debris basins that are in the area, one of which I'm told was built as one of the 180(?)conditions the builder was saddled with when the project was approved. BTW, I was up on the hill in the middle of the night during the May rains and the November rains, and saw no mud in the streets, probably because of the mitigation factors put in place, such as plastic that has been laid out on the graded area just above Baldwin, and the aforementioned debris basin. That of course, doesn't mean there won't be any in the future, but so far, so good. Let's hope we don't end up with a 25 or 50-year storm. But 97%+ of the problem has nothing to do with One Carter, which may have contributed to my having overlooked it. Anyway, I apologize for my inadvertant omission of One Carter as a contributing factor, and I will update my website accordingly.

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  5. UnknownDecember 16, 2008 at 8:13 PM

    Not to belabor the point, but do you have any convincing statistical evidence to back up this 3% claim regarding the so-called One Carter Estates? It has always been my observation that acts of God are more often than not capricious, and saying that storm damage can be predicted with statistical accuracy strikes me as being more than a bit counterintuitive. And besides, can you really be certain that those homeowners who have been experiencing the consequences of the One Carter mudflows would be all that comforted by their inclusion in that 3% figure?

    I mean, you have seen the photos, right? mudflows are mudflows, no matter what slice of the pie chart they come from.

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  6. BillCoDecember 16, 2008 at 9:03 PM

    The 292,000 cubic yard figure and the 8,000 cubic yard figures both come from the report prepared by the City Public Works Department in conjunction with the County Public Works Department. I consider them to be far more expert in this field than I am. Nobody is saying that they can predict storm damage with statistical accuracy. They are, if I understand correctly, estimating what might occur based on evidence gathered from previous storm situations. The 3% figure comes from math. I never said I was certain about whether anybody would be comforted much less the homeowners in that neighborhood. I merely responded to your question about whether I believed that One Carter was a contributing factor. You asked a question, I answered it, agreeing with you that it was a contributing factor. Now you want to argue it, even though I agreed with you. Or to put it another way, you are, exactly, belaboring the point. Regarding the photos you want to know if I've seen: Do you have photos of mud flowing from One Carter? I haven't seen any. Nor have I seen any mud flowing from One Carter. Perhaps you can tell me when this mudflow occurred, and/or provide me with copies of the photos.

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