SALINAS, California – It was 4 am when Crystal Urite and her family were awakened by firefighters knocking on their Monterey County home.
Landslides were beginning to flow in the burn scar left by the fire last summer, and firefighters recommended that she evacuate. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, Urite did not want to go to a crowded shelter. Thirty minutes later, his SUV was submerged in the mud.
The driveway was covered with thick mud, which had come in through the garage door, lining the interior with stones and debris collected along the kilometer-long route of the landslide through the coastal foothills south of the Santa Cruz mountains.
Many homes in the Urite neighborhood that survived the 120 square kilometer river fire were damaged in a pattern as old as California’s coastal mountain ranges. But, as the fire season continues in the West because of climate change, residents are finding that if they escape one disaster, they may not be so lucky in the next.
“The fire was very scary, and I didn’t think the flood was so bad,” said Urite of Wednesday’s landslide, “but then we woke up with the water and everything overflowing.”
Monterey County still had field advisers on Friday, but at least 25 structures were damaged and nearly 8,000 residents were placed under evacuation orders, said communications coordinator Maia Carroll. In Big Sur, part of the scenic Highway 1 was taken to the ocean on Thursday night.
More rain is expected in some parts of the state next week.
In the recent rain, Urite’s car was destroyed and she needed a backhoe to clean her garage and driveway. The house directly above hers was buried in 3 feet of rubble on Thursday with mud stains up to the roof. The house survived a fire season that burned thousands of square miles across California, only to be destroyed in the aftermath.
Landslides and forest fires are what scientists call simultaneous disasters, with one setting the stage for the other. After the worst fire season in California history last year, during which five of the six largest fires to burn in the state began in a two-month period, the rains not only bring the end of the season, but bring the possibility of more disasters.
Rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes are making flooding in the southeast exponentially more dangerous, and drought in the southwest is fueling the long fire season.
As the global climate continues to heat up, so does reckoning with nature, experts say. In 2020, 22 natural disasters caused at least $ 1 billion in damage in the United States alone.
“Heavy rains are always a challenge, but when you have fires and rains a few months apart, even a few years apart, you generate a whole new category of risks,” said Stanford University environmental studies professor Chris Field , which helped create a 2012 United Nations report on climate change and disaster risk worldwide.
Trees and plants generally stabilize the earth, but after a big fire, nothing remains to keep the soil saturated in place, and the rain hits the soil without being interrupted by branches and plants, rather than being distributed by root systems. Once the ground starts to slide, it’s hard to stop, Field said.
“It can really create momentum, like an avalanche does in the snow,” he said, “and start spreading the soil over a very large area.”
Urite’s neighbor, Jarrod Domingos, who lives in the house built by his parents, did not evacuate when the fire in the river caught fire about 400 meters from his door and waited with water trucks to defend his property, should the fire pass fire breaker.
“There were many sleepless nights,” said Domingos.
When it finally ended, Domingos knew that the area would need many small showers to stabilize the soil. So, when a big storm was forecast for this week, he was nervous. Domingos and some of his neighbors accessed Google Maps and calculated the drainage area of the valley above his property. He decided he was small enough not to panic.
“It is never a low season when you are coming out of a disaster,” said Domingos, whose home survived. “This is all about fire. There is simply no coverage at the top. It looks like the moon up there. “