Pacific Coast Highway went from smoldering to flooded in just few weeks: California’s drought-to-deluge cycle on steroids
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- The atmospheric river that hit Southern California this week created mudflows and shut down Pacific Coast Highway
- The extremes of a fire disaster followed by flood threats are indicative of the region’s climate future
- More damage assessments across the region are underway
Just five weeks ago, Pacific Coast Highway was smoldering from one of the most destructive firestorms in Los Angeles County history, with burned-out shells where scores of oceanside homes once stood.
On Friday, the storied coastal road had dissolved into a river of mud and debris after a powerful rainstorm sent those burned hillsides careening toward the ocean, turning canyons into rivers of mud and rocks.
Southern California is used to the cycle of drought and deluge, where fires are followed by flooding and debris flows. But the last few weeks have brought particular climate whiplash to residents of the Pacific Palisades and Altadena burn zones. The fires exploded in part because of a lack of winter rain, which left the landscape unusually bone-dry for January. The rains finally came, but they brought a second wave of challenges. Damage from this week’s rains were negligible compared to the fires.
“This was a one-two punch,” said Capt. Erik Scott, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department. “There’s an abundance of hazardous materials that needs to be removed, followed by fire debris removal, quickly followed by rain and mud, debris flow — all within a month and a half.”
The aftermath of a powerful storm that dumped rain across Los Angeles County’s burn scars came into focus Friday, with a section of Pacific Coast Highway closed after a hill dissolved into a river of mud and rockslides blocking canyon roads that meander through the area’s foothills.
The Ocean-Aire Mobile Home Estates and Country Club Mobile Home Estates in Oxnard were hit by 60-mph wind gusts. Meteorologists say it was a weak tornado.
At the height of the storm, mudslides rushed down Altadena streets, sending people running. Another slide along Highway 330 in the San Bernardino Mountains buried vehicles in mud and pushed some off the roadway.
In Malibu, a torrent of mud and tree branches slammed into a fire department SUV, pushing the vehicle down a cliff and into the Pacific, where the driver climbed out and escaped without significant injury into the surf. The remains of burned homes and vehicles along the scenic coastal stretch were caked in a layer of sludge.
These were among the frantic scenarios that played out as a record-breaking atmospheric river pounded Southern California this week. The three days of rain was a stark departure from the bone-dry conditions that had persisted through the first half of the region’s traditional wet season, culminating in massive firestorms that leveled neighborhoods in Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena.
The rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather — something climate scientists call “hydroclimate whiplash” — are on the rise. In California, it’s played out a number of times in recent years.
In the winter of 2022 into 2023, dozens of atmospheric rivers brought record-breaking rain to California, burying mountain towns in snow, unleashing landslides and providing ample water for thirsty vegetation and farmland. Greenery continued to flourish the following year after another wet winter.
But 2024 brought a record hot summer and ushered in a period of extended dryness that persisted deep into the typical rain season, parching that lush vegetation and creating tinder-dry fuel that helped fuel dangerous wind-driven wildfires. The firestorms that tore through Los Angeles County in January were some of the most destructive and deadliest in modern state history and came amid one of the driest starts to winter across much of Southern California.
“We’re seeing a new phase of climate change, potentially, where we’re actually able to observe and experience these greater extreme events much more frequently,” said Steven Allison, a professor of Earth System Science at UC Irvine.
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Typically, Southern California would see some rain before December so the landscape wouldn’t be dry enough to catch fire in early January. A drought that lasted well into the winter months and resulted in a later high fire season with extreme winds was unusual, he said.
“And now we have not super extreme, but relatively high rainfall shortly after those fires. It’s almost like three events that are relatively rare stacked up and happening in short succession,” Allison said.
On Thursday, the brunt of the strongest storm of the rainy season so far slammed the region, shattering decades-old rainfall records and pounding charred hillsides with such intensity that it unleashed powerful mudslides and caused other damage.
In Oxnard, the siding, rain gutters and roofs of several mobile homes were damaged after a weak tornado ripped through the Country Club Mobile Estates and the Ocean Aire Mobile Homes Estates.
Los Angeles fire officials said 16 roads remained closed Friday across the city because of debris flows. There were more than 3,500 reported power outages and nearly 4,300 calls to public works about downed trees.
Unlike the mild storms that hit Southern California last week, this atmospheric river was a soaker.
The storm dumped 2.80 inches of rain on downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, breaking a daily record of 2.71 inches set in 1954. In Riverside, 1.23 inch of precipitation fell, breaking a record of 0.93 of an inch set in 1980. In Ramona, 1.66 inches of rain fell, breaking the record of 1.53 inches set in 2001.
Farther north, at Paso Robles Airport, 1.45 inches of rain fell, breaking the record of 1.11 inches set in 1986. At Santa Maria Airport, 1.21 inches of rain fell, breaking the record of just under an inch set in 1986.
Over two days, the Eaton and Palisades burn scars each received close to 4 inches of rain. And it fell fast in some areas, upward of an inch an hour — a speed that can result in mud and debris sliding off burned hillsides, said Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.
If there’s one silver lining of the storm, it’s that the amount of rain is probably enough to lessen the fire risk in Southern California — at least for a while, Schoenfeld said.
“Informally, it should be a pretty significant amount of rain that would put us into low season,” she said.
The Palisades fire burned more than 300 mobile homes. Residents worry they will not be able to return.
On Friday, along Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway, where the scent of wet soil and smoke lingered in the air, a bulldozer used its front-mounted blade to scoop up the thin layer of mud that had flowed down Sunset onto the scenic coastal highway. A large volume of that mud had settled in the driveway of a Chevron gas station.
Under the morning sun amid cold winds, men wearing neon green vests and white helmets shoveled small portions of mud the bulldozer could not reach.
A stretch of Malibu Canyon Road near Pepperdine University remained closed after dozens of rocks were strewn across the roadway from a debris flow.
California Department of Transportation engineering officials will conduct hazard assessments in the coming days on the slopes of PCH to see what kind of threat the hillsides pose after the storm. Officials remain concerned the eroded land and rocks could fall even as the area dries out.
“We need to clear the roadway of debris and see what damage underneath the roadway there could be, not just the surface of Pacific Coast Highway but the components underneath as well,” said Nathan Bass, an agency spokesperson. It is not clear when 8.5 miles of the road will reopen.
As crews worked to clear roadways, residents were trying to determine how much damage the rains had done to their properties.
Jennifer Gaulke, wearing a mask and blue latex gloves, made her way down the driveway of her home on Marquez Avenue in Pacific Palisades. She squeezed her way to the back of her garage stuffed with boxes, bins and a long paddleboard.
The Palisades fire had burned the corner of the garage and she worried that rain might have been able to trickle inside. But to her surprise, there was very little water damage aside from some framed artwork and a few boxes.
“It’s a miracle,” she said.
“Miracle” was a word she repeated as she toured her single-story home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Her home had suffered some damage in the Palisades fire: the fruit on an orange tree in the backyard, a carport and the corner of the master bedroom.
But somehow, it had escaped the full wrath of the flames that took down other homes in her neighborhood. She struggles to understand why.
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