As California Storm Brings Mudslides to LA, a Car Plunges Into the Pacific

The road conditions were treacherous, for sure. But it still came as a shock when a Los Angeles Fire Department sport utility vehicle careened down a hill and landed in the Pacific Ocean on Thursday.

TV news footage captured the vehicle after it had plunged more than 20 feet with a fire inspector inside, swept away by a mud flow that had gushed in an instant down a fire-scarred mountain in Malibu, Calif. Once his vehicle turned upright after being tossed about by waves, the inspector cracked his door open, jumped out and trudged through muddy waters. He then clambered up the hill to safety, having the mental wherewithal to bring a bag and pair of shoes with him.

Somehow he emerged practically unscathed and was treated at a hospital with only minor injuries, fire officials said, without providing the inspector’s name. Still, it was one of the most dramatic scenes of a furious storm that caused flooding and mudslides in pockets of Southern California this week before it gave way to blue skies on Friday.

The storm turned some roads into rivers, sent muddy water cascading down hills and even briefly produced a tornado farther up the coast. On Friday, crews in Los Angeles County were working to clear roads and pick up more than 4,000 downed trees and branches, officials said. But ultimately the damage across the area was not as severe or widespread as initially feared.

Officials had been most concerned about the areas that had been burned by wildfires last month. The flames destroyed 12,000 structures, but also damaged the soil and weakened its ability to absorb water, leading to sheets of mud moving downhill and collecting debris along the way.

In Sierra Madre, Calif., in the foothills of the fire-scarred San Gabriel Mountains, mud careened into some neighborhoods, leaving roads and vehicles caked in earth.

The storm had spurred a number of evacuation orders across Southern California and prompted some road closures. But there were no serious injuries or deaths yet reported, the Fire Department said on Friday.

A roughly 10-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway remained closed on Friday after heavy flooding and mudslides made sections of the scenic thoroughfare impassable, according to the California Department of Transportation.

At a mobile home park in Oxnard, Calif., about 60 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, the storm produced a weak tornado that damaged about a dozen structures, including awning and carports, and ripped the roofs off some mobile homes, the National Weather Service said.

Ariel Cohen, the meteorologist in charge of the Weather Service office in Oxnard, said that tornadoes were rare in Southern California. The region typically sees about one tornado per year or every other year, he said.

The storm also produced strong wind gusts across the region, with some reaching more than 70 miles per hour, according to the Weather Service.

Along Pacific Coast Highway, Duke’s Malibu, a iconic restaurant along the ocean, survived the recent fires that had destroyed structures nearby, including dozens of homes along the coast.

But the restaurant was less fortunate this week. Though it had been closed since Jan. 7, when the Palisades fire ignited, TV reports showed that its parking lot flooded when the worst of the storm hit.

In a social media post on Friday, the restaurant said that no one was in the building at the time of the mudslides, but that the “cleanup effort will be extensive.”