Preparing for more rain

GLENDALE — With many of the vital foothill debris catch basins full, residents and public works crews are bracing for a second wave of rain expected to hit today.

Los Angeles County Public Works crews have been working around the clock to clean up tons of mud that severely damaged 43 homes in La Cañada and La Crescenta this weekend. But crews were not expected to make enough progress in clearing out the basins should downpours come again, officials said.

That could mean even more mud and debris for foothill communities where residents are still grappling with the effects of the last storm.

Nine homes in the Paradise Valley community have been tagged as uninhabitable, and several dozen parked vehicles sustained major damage after being tossed around by the force of the debris flows that clogged catch basins Saturday morning.

Despite the intense cleanup effort, county Public Works spokesman Bob Spencer said it would take weeks to clear out debris catch basins that were filled with tons of mud and rocks after the weekend downpour.

“We are concentrating on the smaller ones right now and doing whatever is humanly possible for us to do to prepare for what will be coming our way [today],” he said.

After a series of storms last month that forced hundreds of residents to evacuate, crews hauled out more than a half-million cubic yards of debris from foothill basins, Spencer said.

“And there’s probably that amount already captured in the debris basins again,” he said. “It shows you the system is doing its job, and it’s standing up to it. If the system was not in place, that would have been a half-a-million cubic yards of debris that would have been in neighborhoods.”

Since Saturday, crews have been focused on cleaning up the Mullally, Big Briar and Starfall debris basins, he said.

Intense rain Saturday overran the Mullally basin, propelling mud, rocks and tree branches into La Cañada’s Paradise Valley community.

“It’s impossible for us to turn it around in 48 hours,” Spencer said of the basin.

Debris, mud and tree branches littered the gutters of Ocean View Boulevard on Monday morning as trucks carried heavy equipment up the street for the cleanup effort.