Hundreds of foothill residents were ordered to evacuate their homes Tuesday morning ahead of the storm, which brought thunderstorms and heavy bands of rain.
As of Tuesday evening, Los Angeles County officials had towed six vehicles that were parked on mud-slicked neighborhood streets after warning residents to clear roadways for emergency crews.
Glendale officials had gone door-to-door Monday evening asking residents to move their vehicles off the street to minimize the impact of potential debris flows, which on Saturday damaged 43 homes in La Cañada and flung parked cars across roadways.
During a weather break Tuesday evening, county officials acknowledged that evacuation fatigue had started to take hold of some neighborhoods, but that the latest round of storms had shown just how destructive the barren hillsides could be.
“There’s no way you can evacuate once the flash flooding occurs, when the boulders and the timber and the water comes rushing down,” county Supervisor Mike Antonovich said. “You’ll be crushed or killed.”
As of Tuesday evening, no injuries had been reported, but only half of the residents ordered to evacuate in La Crescenta, La Cañada, Acton and other areas had done so, officials said.
Los Angeles County Public Works Director Gail Farber warned residents to take the orders seriously, “or the next knock you may hear may not be the sheriff, it may be the mud.”
Robert Piuma, a resident on White Deer Drive just off Haskell Street, said he ignored the evacuation orders largely because of his elderly father. He said he also stayed during the Station fire evacuations.
