Home Care In Los Angeles, CA

An early season atmospheric river that brought powerful winds, heavy downpours, flooding and even tornado warnings to Southern California was also a significant test for the region’s burn scars ahead of its traditional rainy season.

The storm — Los Angeles’ first significant rain of the water year that began on Oct. 1 — dumped 2.17 inches of rain in Bel-Air, 2.10 inches in Beverly Hills, 1.27 inches in downtown Los Angeles and 3.28 inches in Woodland Hills as of Tuesday afternoon. The last time downtown got more than an inch of rain in a single day in October was 2009, said John Dumas, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard.

Opids Camp, perched at the top of the San Gabriel Mountains, received the biggest soaking, with 5.53 total inches of rainfall.

The storm, classified as a weak, or Level 1, atmospheric river, brought enough moisture to Southern California’s drought-stricken landscape to delay fire season for weeks, if not months, said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

And it did so without disintegrating the hills ravaged by January’s Palisades and Eaton fires into large flows of rock, mud and debris, Ralph said.

“In a way this is like a Goldilocks atmospheric river,” Ralph said. “It’s sort of just right to be mostly beneficial at this stage of the year.”

Evacuation warnings in Los Angeles-area burn scars, which were initially set to expire at 6 a.m. Wednesday, were instead lifted at 6 p.m. Tuesday due to improving weather conditions.

“City crews and public safety officials rapidly mobilized to prepare for this weather event and to respond to any potential emergencies — their work kept Angelenos safe, especially as it relates to burn scar areas,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a Tuesday evening statement.

Officials were most concerned about those burn scars in Pacific Palisades, Altadena, Sylmar and the Hollywood Hills.

Burned soil repels water instead of soaking it in, so it takes less rain to trigger damaging flooding and debris flows, Dumas said.

On Monday, Los Angeles city and county authorities worked to prepare vulnerable areas with sandbags, and law enforcement went door to door warning residents to prepare to evacuate if necessary. The Los Angeles Fire Department, in coordination with the state Office of Emergency Services, pre-deployed a 22-person strike team, a 27-member hand crew, a six-member urban search-and-rescue team and a 16-member swift-water rescue team to respond to potential debris flows.

On Tuesday, an evacuation order encompassing nearly 115 properties within the burn scars of the Palisades, Sunset and Hurst fires was put into effect. In Orange County, strong downpours prompted officials to issue evacuation orders for some areas below the Airport fire burn scar from last year.

No significant damage in those areas had been reported by the afternoon. Evacuation orders in Orange County were lifted by 5 p.m., officials said.

The storm arrived just two weeks after Marquez Elementary reopened in Pacific Palisades, a milestone seen by many as a step toward reviving the fire-scarred community. But Tuesday, students and teachers were forced to relocate to another school on the Westside because of possible landslides in the neighborhoods around the campus.

The return to Marquez had been widely celebrated among families and staff, but some had criticized the return to the site as premature.

“What does this look like if we have a wet winter?” parent Andrea Samulon said in an email to The Times. “How many days of school will these kids end up losing? ... These are the obvious and predictable repercussions of the hasty return to a community that hasn’t even begun to recover from the fire.”

For all the problems the storm caused, it may have helped stave off others, experts say.

Trees, grasses and plants that make up Southern California’s natural landscape will absorb a lot of moisture from the rain, making them less prime to burn — at least for a while.

“It doesn’t take very many AR storms to really help us have a normal water year and recover from drought,” Ralph said. “This is starting the season off on a favorable foot.”

If another storm arrives in the next few weeks, it could stave off the wildfire season even further, Ralph said. But if the rest of the fall season is dry and Santa Ana winds kick up, that brush could dry out again, raising concerns about fires.

But in the near term, the storm created its fair share of damage and traffic headaches Tuesday.

At about 10:30 a.m. firefighters rescued a 30-year-old woman, a 45-year-old man and two dogs from a platform along the Los Angeles River, according to LAFD.

The man was taken to a hospital for mild cold exposure. The woman declined to be taken to a hospital, LAFD said.

In Orange County, sheriff’s officials and firefighters were attempting to retrieve what they believed was a body found floating along the Santa Ana River Tuesday afternoon.

The suspected body was first seen along the river near the 405 Freeway in Fountain Valley around 11 a.m. and has since moved toward Adams Avenue in Huntington Beach, said Sgt. Gerard McCann with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

In Sun Valley, heavy rain accumulation caused the flat roof of a movie studio to collapse, causing damage to film equipment and sets, according to the weather service. A woman who was inside the building at the time told Fox 11 Los Angeles that she heard what she thought were heavy footsteps on the roof before water started pouring into the studio.

Along with the heavy rain, the storm unleashed strong winds with gusts reaching 53 mph at Zuma Beach in Malibu, 45 mph along the Newhall Pass and up to 73 mph in portions of the Western San Gabriel Mountains, according to the weather service.

The storm began in earnest before sunrise, moving through San Luis Obispo County around midnight and dropping up to 2.5 inches of water per hour. It prompted the weather service to issue a couple of rare tornado warnings for areas including Pismo Beach, Nipomo and Oceano, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether a tornado formed.

The storm then moved down into Ventura County’s mountains later Tuesday morning, where some higher-elevation areas saw rainfall rates as high as 3.5 inches per hour, Dumas said. Downed trees, rocks and debris were reported, he said.

Roadway flooding was reported across Los Angeles and Ventura counties, including on Hueneme Road near Olds Road in Mar Vista, along the 101 Freeway near Seward Avenue in Ventura and along the 5 Freeway near Sheldon Road in Sun Valley. In Lake Hughes, rocks and mud were strewn across a portion of San Francisquito Road. In Encino, a downed tree was blocking a lane of Burbank Boulevard.

Before arriving in Southern California, the wintry storm swept through Northern and Central California, where it dusted the Sierra with the season’s first major accumulation of snow, caused flight delays at San Francisco Airport, and generated a whirling column of air and mist over Monterey Bay. By Monday evening, rainfall totals in the Bay Area ranged from around 0.5 inches to 2 inches, according to the weather service.

Lingering showers are expected to peter out by Wednesday evening, with drying and warming winds sweeping across the county that night. Southern California’s characteristically moderate climate should return by Thursday with pleasant highs in the 70s common across L.A. County.

Times staff writer Howard Blume contributed to this report.

Los Angeles (AP) — Los Angeles County officials voted Tuesday to declare a state of emergency that gives them power to provide assistance for residents they say have suffered financially from ongoing federal immigration raids.

The move allows the LA County Board of Supervisors to provide rent relief for tenants who have fallen behind as a result of the crackdown on immigrants.

The immigration raids that ramped up over the summer have spread fear in immigrant communities, prompting many to limit their outings. Federal agents have rounded up immigrants without legal status to be in the U.S. from Home Depots, car washes, bus stops, and farms. Some U.S. citizens have also been detained.

The local state of emergency can also funnel state money for legal aid and other services.

Funds for rent will be available to people who apply via an online portal that would be launched within two months, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s office said. The motion could also be a first step toward an eviction moratorium, but that would require a separate action by the supervisors.

Landlords worried it could be another financial hit after an extended ban on evictions and rental increases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The declaration was passed by a 4-1 vote, with Supervisor Kathryn Barger opposing.

Horvath and Supervisor Janice Hahn said the raids have spread fear and destabilized households and businesses. In late August, there were more than 5,000 arrests in Los Angeles as part of the crackdown. About a third of the county’s 10 million residents are foreign-born. Several cities in the region canceled their Fourth of July celebrations and summer movie nights as families stayed home due to safety concerns.

Since June, the Los Angeles region has been a battleground in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration strategy that spurred protests and the deployment of the National Guard and Marines for more than a month.

“We have residents afraid to leave their homes, we have constituents contacting my office because their family members never came home and they don’t know if they’ve been taken by ICE or where they’ve been taken,” Hahn said. “We have entire families who are destitute because their fathers or mothers have been taken from their work places and they have no way to pay their rent or put food on their table.”

Last week the five-member board voted 4-1 to put the declaration up for a vote at its regular Tuesday meeting. The sole “no” vote also came from Barger, who argued that the immigration raids did not meet the criteria of an emergency and that it could be unfair to landlords.

“I’m sure we’re going to be challenged legally,” Barger said. The county’s eviction moratorium during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in multiple lawsuits.

Several people said they were against the emergency declaration if it would lead to an eviction moratorium during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s vote.

Landlords are “still reeling” from the COVID-era freezes that cost them “billions of dollars in uncollected rent and prohibited annual rent increase,” said Daniel Yukelson, CEO of the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles.

He said housing providers are sympathetic to tenants and their family members affected by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities. But, he said, the association isn’t aware of anyone unable to pay rent due to immigration enforcement.

“If local jurisdictions once again allow rent payments to be deferred due to ICE enforcement activities, this will lead to the further deterioration and loss of affordable housing in our community,” Yukelson said Monday.

Cleanup efforts were underway Wednesday across Southern California following a rare October storm that brought significant rain to the region.

There had been concerns of mud flows in the burn scar areas of the January wildfires, but major flooding damage was avoided for the most part.

Some spots continued to see showers overnight, keeping roads slick and creating dangerous driving conditions.

Evacuation warnings were in place for the Eaton Fire burn scar area due to the possibility of mud or debris flows.

All evacuation orders and warnings were lifted within the Pacific Palisades, Sunset, and Hurst burn scar areas as of 6 p.m.

Evacuation orders for Trabuco Creek, Hot Springs Canyon, Bell Canyon, Long Canyon and Modjeska Canyon were also lifted at 5 p.m.

You can find more information at AlertLA.org.

Key Headlines

Southern Californians are more used to seeing heat in early to mid-October as opposed to a cold storm, like the one that drenched and chilled the region Tuesday.

So just how common is it to see rain this time of year?

Significant rain in Southern California for the month of October is somewhat rare, although it does happen on occasion, according to the National Weather Service.

Click here to find out what else we learned.

An incredible water rescue in an Oxnard flood channel was caught on video as a strong storm drenched most of Southern California.

A dog was stranded on a small collection of debris right at the end of a strong current Tuesday, according to the Ventura County Fire Department.

Firefighters responded and extended a 35-foot ladder to grab the pup and bring it back to dry land.

The dog, believed to be a 3-year-old female pub or French bulldog, was not harmed. She did not have a tag on her collar and was not micro-chipped.

She is now in the care of Ventura County Animal Services. Officials hope her owner comes forward to reclaim her. If nobody does, she will be put up for adoption.

There were several crashes overnight across slick Southern California roads as the remnants of a fall storm moved out of the region.

In Griffith Park, an overturned big rig shut down all northbound lanes of the 5 Freeway for several hours. It was one of many crashes reported overnight.

Though the storm didn't cause as much damage as it could have, driving conditions will remain a concern through Wednesday morning as roads dry out.

The California Highway Patrol said that as of 4 p.m. Tuesday, it received 820 calls for service for crashes in Los Angeles County amid the storm.

That number does not include spinouts and some of those calls could be duplicates, the CHP said.

However, CHP said it only had 376 calls for service around the same time last Tuesday without the rain.

Fesia Davenport, Los Angeles County’s chief executive officer, received a $2-million settlement this summer due to professional fallout from Measure G, a voter-approved ballot measure that will soon make her job obsolete, according to a letter she wrote to the county’s top lawyer.

Davenport wrote in the July 8 letter, which was released by the county counsel through a public record request Tuesday, that she had been seeking $2 million in damages for “reputational harm, embarrassment, and physical, emotional and mental distress caused by the Measure G.”

Under Measure G, which voters approved last November, the county chief executive, who manages the county government and oversees its budget, will be elected by voters instead of appointed by the board. The elected county executive will be in place by 2028.

“Measure G is an unprecedented event, and has had, and will continue to have, an unprecedented impact on my professional reputation, health, career, income, and retirement,” Davenport wrote to county counsel Dawyn Harrison. “My hope is that after setting aside the amount of my ask, that there can be a true focus on what the real issues are here - measure G has irrevocably changed my life, my professional career, economic outlook, and plans for the future.”

The existence of the $2-million settlement, finalized in mid-August, was first Tuesday by LAist. It was unclear then what the settlement was for.

Davenport, a longtime county employee, was appointed chief executive in 2021.

Under the terms of the settlement, Davenport cannot sue the county, including for “any claims arising out of the facts and circumstances surrounding the enactment of the ballot proposition known as ‘Measure G.’ ”

Davenport began a medical leave last week and told staff she expects to be back early next year. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the settlement.

Davenport’s Aug. 12 letter stated that other department heads had received significant payments upon departure. She noted the prior chief executive officer, Sachi Hamai, had received $1.5 million. The letter also makes an apparent reference to Mary Wickham and Rodrigo Castro-Silva, mentioning the former county attorneys by their last names.

Wickham received about $449,000 in severance pay and Castro-Silva received $213,000, according to records obtained by The Times.

“My circumstance is different in that I am not seeking to leave, and I have suffered damages, through no fault of my own,” she wrote.

Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn first announced Measure G in July , branding it as a long-overdue overhaul to the county’s sluggish bureaucracy. Under the charter amendment, the number of supervisors increased to nine and the county chief executive will now be elected.

On Aug. 12, 2024, a few weeks after the announcement, Davenport wrote a letter to Horvath saying the measure had impugned her “professional reputation” and would end her career at least two years earlier than she expected, according to another letter released Tuesday through a public records request.

“This has been a tough six weeks for me,” Davenport wrote in her letter. “It has created uncomfortable, awkward interactions between me and my CEO team (they are concerned), me and other departments heads (they are apologetic), and even County outsiders (they think I am being fired).”

Horvath said in a statement the ballot measure created a “more transparent and accountable government.”

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: L.A. County government is broken,” she said. “Measure G, which was approved by L.A. County voters, puts the power back in the hands of the people.”

The position of elected CEO was by far the most controversial part of Measure G. Supporters said that making the chief executive elected rather than appointed would bring more accountability to one of the county’s most powerful posts. Opponents warned it would consolidate too much power with one person and bring politics into a fundamentally bureaucratic position.