Preparing for disaster again

LA CRESCENTA — Foothill residents raced to fill up sandbags and construct mud deflectors Tuesday evening as rain poured steadily against hillsides blackened by the Station fire.

Residents braced themselves for the rainfall, which geologists advised could affect burn areas and create devastating debris flows.

Los Angeles County Public Works crews rushed to install K-rails, which are large concrete blocks, in La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta neighborhoods up against Deukmejian Wilderness Park and Angeles National Forest. Officials expect the K-rails to divert the mud away from homes and onto roads.

La Crescenta resident Jim Smiley, his son and father were making a last-ditch effort to protect his home on Freeman Avenue from potential debris flows. They stacked sandbags outside his home.

“I am not concerned for tonight, but when we do get heavy rainfall, we want to make sure we are prepared,” he said.

Manzanita Street resident Lynn Drewe was walking her dog, Baxter, as county crews installed K-rails along Freeman Avenue. Drewe was monitoring the weather conditions, which she said would force her to consider evacuating if they worsened.

La Cañada resident Olivia Brown and her husband spent about $10,000 on materials and equipment to safeguard their home from a burned hillside that abuts her backyard.

Since the fire, Brown has seen landslides daily on the hillside.

Construction crews were at her neighbor Tammy Smith’s home building mudflow walls during the rain. She started reinforcing her home in preparation for winter storms after the fire.

But the rain, she said, came too soon.

“We just needed one more week, and we would have been done,” Smith said.

Sandra Burch has lived in her La Crescenta home for 15 years, but she never thought it could be destroyed until the Station fire.

The fire came dangerously close to her home.

She loaded up on sandbags, and crews were going to install a K-rail in front of her home in preparation for the next potential disaster.

“I am just happy to have a house after all of the fires,” Burch said.

City officials also geared up Tuesday for the long and rainy night ahead, making sure sand was available to residents in the burn areas, reinforcing K-rails on streets and activating an information system for residents.