La Cañada mayor blames Forest Service for slides
By Tony Castro, Los Angeles Daily News, 02/07/2010 [here]
Officials are scrambling to avoid a repeat of the weekend’s hillside mudslides that damaged 43 homes in La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta and left many scratching their heads over the apparent lack of emergency preparations.
Workers hurried Sunday to empty debris basins once filled with mud in anticipation of mid-week rains feared to further endanger homes on hillsides denuded by last summer’s wildfires.
Although today’s forecast predicted mostly sunny skies and a high near 60 degrees, a 20 percent chance of rain was expected to increase to a 40 percent chance of rain by Tuesday night and a 30 percent chance of rain Wednesday morning.
Earlier Sunday, evacuation orders were lifted for residents in the mudslide area where at least nine of the mud-damaged homes were uninhabitable - possibly permanently. Some 540 residences had been evacuated in the foothill areas of La Crescenta, Acton, Altadena and La Cañada Flintridge.
“This is such a pretty community to live in, but not right now,” said a tearful Donna McLaughlin, whose La Cañada Flintridge home was flooded by Saturday’s mud flow.
Some local officials on Sunday demanded that the federal government pay for mud removal, blaming the mudslide damage on the U.S. Forest Service for scaling back firefighting efforts too early after the Station Fire broke out in late August.
La Cañada Flintridge Mayor Laura Olhasso blasted the U.S. Forest Service for allowing mud to flow from federal land into residential neighborhoods - a complaint similar to one made earlier by Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.
“I call on the federal government to take the responsibility to help our residents pay for cleaning up the mud,” Olhasso said at a news conference in her mud-ravaged community. “The federal government must take responsibility for their mud that is coming out of their hills.” … [more]