Winter Storm Brings Flooding and Mudslides to Southern California
Misty Cheng described the devastating scene as the “nightmare before Christmas” when a massive amount of water, mud, and rock flowed through her Wrightwood home on Wednesday. Her experience was one of the worst caused by a winter storm that drenched Southern California, highlighting the risks faced by residents, especially those living below the burn scar of a recent fire.
Ten inches of rain fell in mountain areas, with the deluge being particularly heavy in the Wrightwood area below where the Bridge fire blazed through 56,000 acres in 2024. This made Cheng’s hillside home, which was well away from the fire itself, vulnerable to the flooding and mudslides. The situation is similar to that of hillside neighborhoods near the Eaton and Palisades fires, which are still at risk a year later.
The heaviest part of the storm system subsided on Thursday, but off-and-on showers and thunderstorms continued to hit some areas, causing local flooding and mudslides. The Los Angeles County burn-area evacuation orders were extended through Friday at 1 p.m. due to the persistent risks.
Cheng, a 49-year-old accountant, was away from her house when a wall of mud and water piled up against it. A neighbor who entered her home described the scene as looking like an aquarium’s glass wall through her sliding glass door. Cheng asked her neighbor to open the front door and a door to the garage, allowing the water to pass through the house if the mud and water broke through. Although the sliding glass doors held, a garage wall collapsed, and the water flowed through the house, leaving behind a significant amount of mud and debris.
Storm damage in Wrightwood, where a mudslide slammed through on Christmas Eve.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Flooding Still a Risk
Areas that continued to be at risk include Malibu, Topanga State Park, Pacific Palisades, Topanga Canyon Road through the Santa Monica Mountains, Malibu Canyon, and Los Virgenes Roads through the Santa Monica Mountains, and Mandeville Canyon. The National Weather Service warned of heavy thunderstorms throughout southern Ventura County, with radar tracking storm activity and wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour.
The storms pounded a wide swath of California, leaving three people dead. A 64-year-old San Diego man died after a tree fell on him, while a woman in her 70s was knocked off a rock and killed by a large wave during a fierce storm at a beach at MacKerricher State Park. On Sunday, a person trapped inside a vehicle died in rising waters as flooding overwhelmed parts of Redding.
