People in Los Angeles typically hear the word hurricane and just assume it’s far away. This time, there’s a chance that a tropical storm hits Southern California over Labor Day Weekend.
Heavy rain and winds battering charred hillsides could produce mudslides and complicate the ongoing rebuild of areas destroyed by wildfires.
“It just seems to be one thing after another,” Mark Smith, who lost his home in the Palisades Fire, told Straight Arrow.
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Potential Storm
Tropical Storm Marie, currently churning in the Pacific Ocean, is expected to strengthen into a hurricane by Thursday. At this point, it’s doubtful the powerful storm will make direct landfall into Southern California.
But even if it doesn’t make direct landfall, it could impact the area.
“The surf is gonna get really choppy,” Alex Cheney, a SoCal meteorologist, told Straight Arrow. “You’re gonna get rain. You’re gonna get wind. You’re gonna get some really low-grade tropical storm effects.”
Major rain events in the Los Angeles area don’t happen often. When they do, they risk triggering landslides, mudslides and flooding.
Four years ago, Hurricane Kay brought heavy rain and strong winds to the area.
“Those remnants did cause high-intensity rainfall over areas that had burned in the transverse ranges in Southern California, and did result in floods and debris flows,” Matt Thomas, research hydrologist in the USGS’s Landslide Hazards Program, told Straight Arrow.
Major rain can also bring flooding to the area, which causes storm drains to fill up. That could even be a bigger issue with all the dirt lots in the Palisades waiting to be rebuilt.
“We’ve mentioned this to the city plenty of times that they need to, instead of once or twice a year cleaning of those storm drains, it should be quarterly at minimum,” Kambiz Kamdar, owner of Pali Construction, told Straight Arrow. “It’s going to be another one of those things where we’ve told the city what they should do, and they have not. And they’ll see what happens when the rains come and those storm drains get backed up, full of debris and get clogged.”
Requests for comment from Mayor Karen Bass’ office went unanswered.
At this point, it’s unclear what kind of rain event is headed SoCal’s way.
“You’re not exactly getting like Hurricane Katrina,” Cheney said. “Setting expectations here. It could be very cloudy, very, you know, above average rain, wind, surf. I completely expect beach advisories to pop up.”
Tropical Storms tend to dump rain at high volumes in short amounts of time, which is where the problems can come in. Even if it doesn’t end up being a massive rainfall total, it could still cause some issues.
“The main thing we know is that it’s the rainfall rate that causes the problem, not necessarily the rainfall total,” Thomas said.
Impact on the rebuild
Any major rain event will have an impact on the ongoing rebuild in places like the Palisades. Especially concern over mud and landslides.
“Being along the sides of hills, my own particular burn site being right on a hillside, we worry about slippage and slides and things of that nature that could damage the structural integrity of the hillside,” Smith said.
Homes in the area are in different stages of the rebuild. Some are up and standing, some are just a frame, and many are still a dirt lot.
For the ones with a roof over their head, experts say they’re in good shape.
Others with only frames constructed could be in trouble.
“If you don’t have a roof on, you wait it out and let it dry out,” Kamdar said. “So, there’s not much you can do at that point.”
That could just add more time to an already long road.
“A wet-wood construction is going to have to come to a stop,” Smith said.
With flooding possible, attempting to control where that water goes may be a key factor, although difficult. The plan becomes anticipating high-water flow areas and diverting them to keep existing construction from getting damaged.
“We can always bring back dirt and water a lot easier than we can replace structures,” Alison MacCracken, post-disaster recovery expert, told Straight Arrow.
Even that dirt could cause some major issues because it’s loose. That runoff can cause storm drains to clog.
Another concern with these kinds of storms in fire-burned areas is the chemicals that could be found in the ground from what’s burned down. This area has had storms since the fires, and most of the chemicals are likely washed away, but it’s always a concern.
“We never know just what’s still left around,” Smith said.
At any rate, this latest potential storm is just another hurdle for many people who’ve already faced insurance issues, and issues with the power company that may have started the fire.
And it’s something they’re all keeping an eye on.
“It’s a team effort,” MacCracken said. “I think all parties need to be monitoring the storm closely.”
The bigger concern
The consensus worry remains El Niño. This weather event is expected to cause a very warm, active hurricane season and bring more storms.
“This is all because of El Niño,” Cheney said. “All because that warmer water is out there in the eastern Pacific right now. All these storms happen all the time, but usually they just go left and they go out of the way. You’ll see hurricanes really follow the warm water, and so it’ll keep following it north.”
This tropical storm could cause major issues. Or it could not. Predicting the weather is hard.
“Super El Niño, we will see what happens when that comes later on this year,” Kamdar said.
What is likely is more rain drenching Southern California. The bulk of the rainfall in that area comes during the late fall and winter months.
That can also impact this rebuild.
“I have daily conversations with our architect and with our contractor, and just earlier last week, had met with them on this topic of what we do to prepare for El Niño, the heavy rains of El Niño, and of course the tropical storm has been a more recent development,” Smith said.
Getting ready for rain events from the storm or El Niño depends on where you are in the rebuild.
“Depending on what stage of construction you’re in, you prep as best as you can, and sometimes you just are out of luck,” Kamdar said.
But for these people who’ve already been through so much, it’s just another hurdle to clear.
“When your house burns down, you become very resilient,” MacCracken said. “They’ve already gone through severe storms after the fires, so if anything, they’re probably the most prepared out of any individual, and not afraid of what’s to come because they know there’s only so much they can do to control the outcome.”
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