First Sizeable Storm Sets Malibu on the Path to Greening

• Low Pressure System Could Break Light Rain/Santa Ana Pattern Creating High Fire Danger

BY ANNE SOBLE

Even though a lot of people’s Saturday plans may have taken a drubbing, a slow-moving upper level low pressure system that brought anywhere from one-half to two inches of rain to parts of Malibu on Saturday was cheered by Los Angeles County fire officials and anyone else who was concerned during the last two months of non-stop red flag warnings.

Although it’s still too soon to take down the high fire danger warning signs from throughout the mountains, this weekend’s rainfall came without the one-two punch of strong Santa Ana winds that became the norm. It was a first step toward the kind of soil saturation that’s required to allow wildfire watchers to breathe a little more easily.

Addition rainfall on Tuesday (the nearby thunder was an added flourish) came at sufficiently spaced intervals to minimize erosion and mud and landslides in local burn areas and along the always more vulnerable canyon roadways.

Bands of moisture wrapped around the low, accounting for breaks in the intermittent rainfall, which is always ideal when the ground has been dry for so many months. The southwesterly onshore wind provided icing on the meteorological cake.

There was some inconvenience, but on the whole, the rain’s impact was as beneficial as it was long overdue. Rain stats for the Malibu coast and hills had hovered at 80 percent below normal.

Local road cleanup crews were on the scene around the clock with their usual adeptness and speed. County trucks in the hills pushed rocks and debris with some of the same plows that handled the fluke snowfall in the Kanan area two weeks ago.

The snow was delightful, but this week’s rain is the big story.

Photo credit, MSN/Frank Lamonea
READINESS—Many of the wildfire burn areas of Malibu Road were double-and-triple-sandbagged to protect against erosion and mud and debris slides. The preparedness also prevented further exacerbation of the inevitable flooding at the side of the roadway.