The record rainfall in California has soaked its steep hillsides, causing hundreds of landslides and heightening the threat to communities.
FILE - Rocks and vegetation cover Highway 70 following a landslide in the Dixie Fire zone on Oct. 24, 2021, in Plumas County, Calif. – Relentless storms from a series of atmospheric rivers have saturated the steep mountains and bald hillsides scarred from wildfires along much of California's long coastline, causing hundreds of landslides this month., killing 23 people and wiping out 130 homes.
Added to that, wildfires have left some hillsides with little to no vegetation to hold the soil in place.The most vulnerable areas are hillsides that have burned in the past two to three years with communities below them, said Jeremy Lancaster, who leads the California Department of Conservation’s geological and landslide mapping team.
But basins, which can require a lot of land, can also disrupt the natural ecosystem and lead to beaches needing to be replenished by collecting sediment that flows out of the canyons, according to experts. After the 2018 mudslides hit Montecito, the Los Angeles Times reported that debris basins above the community were undersized and hadn’t been sufficiently emptied.
McElroy said he's still haunted by memories from 2018 but feels better, knowing that the community might be safer now.
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