Debris flows cause major problems in Southern California

Mudslides, floods and debris flows caused serious issues for many communities throughout Southern California on Feb. 5.

Transcript

00:00 At least one person has been killed while removing a tree that had fallen on his home in Yuba City.

00:06 And of course we have a lot more with this storm.

00:08 The deadly storm in California is our top story tonight.

00:12 Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for eight counties in California,

00:16 including Los Angeles and San Diego.

00:19 For a closer look at the impacts, we head to extreme meteorologist Dr. Reid Timmer,

00:23 who is on the ground in Southern California.

00:25 And Reid, what can you tell us about how things are developing in the area around Malibu?

00:30 Well, things are starting to finally improve here across Malibu.

00:35 And most of the Los Angeles metro area, as the plume is beginning to sag off to the south,

00:39 you can still see there is a lot of flow here, a lot of water in Malibu Creek.

00:43 But it was much higher through this morning.

00:45 The bridge just upstream on the north side of town was overtopped.

00:49 That's been closed throughout the day.

00:51 Further up Malibu Canyon, there's a ton of landslides, mudslides,

00:55 boulders in the middle of the road that closed that down through the morning hours.

00:59 And further east, there's another canyon, Topango Canyon.

01:02 That was the one that was just up recently.

01:05 There was a lot of slides on that as well.

01:07 That was closed.

01:08 And I spoke to some people.

01:10 Their homes were flooded out there along that canyon.

01:13 And that flow came right over the road that is up Topango Canyon there.

01:18 Beverly Glen, though, is probably the worst damage that I saw.

01:21 And all of that was from mudflows, mudslides, debris deposited on the road.

01:25 And that is in the eastern part of the Santa Monica Mountains

01:28 where the greatest amount of rainfall happened, about 5 to 10, even up to 15 inches of rain,

01:33 verified by rain gauges.

01:35 And that happened last night as that flow was orthogonal right up into the mountains.

01:39 Worse timing, too, because it happened in the middle of the night.

01:42 So as life-threatening as it can get here across Southern California,

01:46 but especially peaking last night and now it's beginning to subside this evening.

01:51 All right.

01:52 Thanks, Creed, for that update.

01:53 Of course, a lot that you're covering there with a lot of those mudslides

01:57 and debris flows in that region.

01:59 And you're going to keep us updated on that as we head through the upcoming hours.