|
After
a brief respite from the rains of January 2005, I find myself sitting
here at my laptop once again, listening to water pouring down my rain
gutter spouts. The un-sidewalked side of my street periodically turns
into a gushing streambed as I type, the dog yard behind my house is now
a muddy pond. Within two hours
the rain gauge records four inches of rain. While I feel relatively safe
that my house is not dangerously close to the San Gabriel
mountain hillsides, and I have some faith in modern flood control, I am reminded of "Noah-type" storms of the past that
wreaked great havoc on my community and the neighboring ones in the last
century.
|
|
| Fast moving
waters in the Tujunga Wash submerge a section of Oro Vista Ave.
(far left), temporarily isolating the community of Riverwood. |
New Years Eve Comes
Barreling In
Moments before 1934 arrived, the anticipation and excitement of a
new year would quickly turn to terror as heavy rains sent great walls of
debris, mud, and water down the San Gabriel Mountains to the
unsuspecting residents of the Crescenta and Tujunga Valley communities
below. The La Crescenta and Montrose areas reported at least 40 people
dead, and 400 homes seriously damaged or destroyed. Amongst the dead
were New Year's Eve celebrants at the local American Legion Hall.
In his book, The Control of Nature, John McPhee, describes
iceberg size boulders amongst the debris that washed down the mountains
on that fateful New Years Day of 1934. Dozens of people were killed,
hundreds of houses destroyed. One major debris flow came down from Pickens
Canyon, past Foothill Boulevard, and through the
business district of Montrose. An eight foot boulder laid to rest on Honolulu, three miles south
of the mountain front where it originally came from. The streets of La
Crescenta "were like braided rivers of Alaska, with channels of
water looping past islands of debris." The square roofs of Model
A's sticking out of the mud throughout the area, looked more like river
rafts than automobiles.
Harrowing Train &
Automobile Ride In The Deluge
A letter submitted by Mrs. Bill Barker, of Ojai, appears in June
Dougherty's Sources of History La Crescenta.
Mrs. Barker, who was known
as Margaret Repath in 1934, describes a harrowing account of her
family's New Year's Eve train and car trip from Santa Barbara
to Glendale. The weather was
relatively dry until they hit San Luis Obispo. By Oxnard
and Chatsworth it
was wet enough to delay their train travel progress.
Each side of the track was filled with water, slowing them even
more. The train came to a halt between Burbank
and Glendale, three hours behind
schedule. After another two hours of starting and stopping the going was
to rough to continue on.
At this last stop so close to Burbank, Margaret and her children
ages three and five, suddenly saw Chuck, whom she was married to at the
time, running through the train to them. He was "drenched to the
skin, barefooted, trousers rolled up above his knees", and surely a
sight for sore eyes. Chuck and friends had waited at the Glendale
train station until
it became apparent they were not arriving, then took off by automobile
to get to them.
The drive to
Glendale
was even more
terrifying than the train ride had been. Streets were described as
"regular rivers" with abandoned
cars everywhere. The car stalled at San Fernando Road
and water got in the
distributor. Margaret and children waited in the back seat, while the
men got out to find help. They must have watched
in horror as the men were nearly swept off their feet by fast moving
water. Inside the car, water was starting to come in the floor, and
everyone braced themselves for the worst. At last, Chuck found two boys
in a Buick helping people. Margaret and children were carried
across "the torrent" to some realm of safety. Meantime,
the Packard they left behind had filled up to the running boards in
silt.
The family was slowly driven through Glendale, stopping often at
apartment houses asking if there was room for them to stay until it was
safe, but every place was already full of flood refugees. As they
reached
North Glendale
the Buick stalled,
and they were stranded once again. The men shivered from their wet
clothes as they tried to wrap up in a half wet auto robe. Then at last a
man in oilskins managed to wade to their car and offered them the
comforts of his home. They were provided food and a place out of the
rain to sleep, while the owner of the home kept an eye out in case the
wash half a mile away decided to change course and head towards them in
the night. The next morning, the family neighbor was called to come get
them in his big car and take them to their home on Crown Street
in La Crescenta.
Although the street ran "curb to curb" with water, they felt
they were in a safe haven at last.
Before the debris was hauled away, Margaret and her family
managed to get down to the flood areas of Montrose and La Crescenta.
Margaret's last paragraph of her letter describes what they saw,
"We stood back about 100 feet from where they were digging
out a woman and her children. They had been drowned like rats in their
bed and covered with silt and debris at least 10 feet deep."
The scene was too horrible for her to continue to describe in her
own words at this point, and from here she relies on a Times
reporter's account: "It is impossible to believe such a tragedy
could happen, unless actually seeing it." The end of Margaret's
letter to her mother notes that "rainfall
are 17-1/2 inches for this section in the one storm, believe it or not.
Los Angeles
received about 8
inches only."
Read
More
|
