Heavy rains, flash floods leave Southern California homes caked in mud
Three days of heavy downpours that spawned flash flooding and mudslides across Southern California subsided on Friday (December 26), as residents of homes in the hard-hit mountain resort of Wrightwood began digging out mud and assessing damage.
In Wrightwood, a town of about 5,000 residents that bore the brunt of the storm in the San Gabriel Mountains northeast of Los Angeles, county safety inspectors began initial assessments of property losses.
The holiday storm drenched the greater Los Angeles basin with up to 6 inches of rain by Friday, with 12 inches or more measured in lower-elevation mountains east of the city, according to the National Weather Service.
Homes and vehicles in the town of Wrightwood were caked in walls of mud as crews in front-loaders began clearing clogged roadways.
The deluge, which began around Christmas Eve, was spawned by the region's latest atmospheric river storm, a vast airborne stream of dense moisture siphoned from the Pacific and carried inland.
The torrential rains were accompanied by strong, gusty winds that toppled trees and power lines across the region, causing power outages. Heavy snow fell in upper mountain areas.
Several dozen homes were heavily damaged by rivers of mud that poured through the town on Wednesday (December 24), and officials were on standby for additional debris flows that might occur, San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesman Ryan Beckers said.
Beckers said emergency teams had rescued a couple of dozen people who were trapped by high water and debris flows in their vehicles or homes over the holidays, but no deaths or serious injuries were reported in Wrightwood.
The Weather Service said Southern California was expected to dry out over the weekend, while across the country, a major winter storm threatened to begin dumping record levels of snow over parts of New York state starting on Friday night.
(Source: Reuters)
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