Just 0.3 Inches of Rain Can Trigger Deadly Surprises Left by California Wildfire - And the State Is Full of Them
Last month, a woman died in a mudslide in Southern California. Her body was found only after “several days of methodical searching.”
If that sounds like a horrible tragedy to you, you’re not wrong. Doris Jagiello, 62, was found buried beneath “several feet of mud, rocks and debris,” the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Deptartment told ABC News at the time. When I imagine what the last moments of her life must have been like, I wince. I can only hope they passed quickly for her.
I don’t wish to be flippant, nor am I trying to sensationalize Ms. Jagiello’s death. Just the opposite — I hope we can learn something from it.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, debris flows like the one that took Doris Jagiello on Sept. 12 can occur after as little as 0.3 inches of rain falling over the course of 45 minutes onto post-fire areas.
And California is riddled with these post-fire “burn scars.”
New timelapse footage shows mud and debris gushing into a burn scar in California and covering the area in less than an hour.
At least one person was killed when mud and debris swept through her home. https://t.co/kS0am5HxI4 pic.twitter.com/YAihDQeFc5
— ABC News (@ABC) October 28, 2022
According to Fox Weather, this season’s winter storms are cause for concern following widespread wildfires earlier in the year.
“We’re worried about the rain, the winter and (will be for) a couple of years down the road,” Brendan McClusky, director of King County Emergency Management in Washington told FOX Weather.
“We’ve had people go door to door with information, and now, in addition, we’re giving them some NOAA all-hazard weather radios,” he said. “And we’re even going to be putting some portable weather stations on top of the mountain there so that we can accurately track what the rainfall rates are.”
“In places where the wildfire was burning for a while, the soil afterward almost repels the water. Rainfall that would normally be absorbed, especially in dense forests, will very quickly run off and pose a threat for extreme flash flooding for whoever or whatever is down the mountain,” Fox Weather meteorologist Heather Brinkmann said.
The USGS said that up to 50 people die annually in landsides, which also cause up to $2 billion in damage.
“Debris flows are very dangerous and have been known to destroy roads, homes, and other structures and result in fatalities if people are not able to evacuate,” Northwestern University professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences Daniel Horton said. “Debris flows speeds vary depending on the event, but can reach up to 35 mph.”
Horton has helped develop a model that would predict landslides in previously high-risk areas. It’s currently only a prototype, but Fox Weather said it might someday allow early warnings, and might eventually “lean to preventive land management techniques.”
It might recommend some, but whether they’ll get implemented or not is another question. California’s poor land management is an important contributing factor to wildfires and mudslides, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has had a plan in place since 2019 to help address some of those issues.
Unfortunately, three years later, it’s still just a plan. Not a single project has been completed under the California Vegetation Treatment Program, The Western Journal reported in April.
The Trump administration had, in fact, threatened in 2018 to cut off federal relief funding for those affected by California’s wildfires if the state didn’t get its land management under control.
It didn’t, and it still hasn’t, and now Doris Jagiello is dead.
I hope she didn’t die in vain, and that California’s leaders can act with appropriate urgency to address the issue, or we’re going to see similar needless tragedies repeated every rainy season.
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