Big Storms End With Big Cleanups
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Los Angeles County crews spent much of Thursday cleaning up messes left by this week's storms around the county.
One big mess was a 90-foot tall scotch pine that toppled on Cabana Avenue in La Puente. The tree blocked the entire road and knocked down Janet Looney's fence.
"After all that rain and wind we had, it went down about quarter to 10 last night," Looney said. She grew up on Cabana Avenue and watched the tree grow and tower above the homes on her street. "approximately 60 years. My mom planted it."
She took a photo of the tree on Thanksgiving. "It was a massive tree. Beautiful tree," Looney recalled. The root's diameter is more than 12-feet tall. "Thank God it didn't hit no cars. Nobody hurt. I mean, it just landed on the street," she said.
In Azusa, workers were also busy clearing the Beatty Debris Basin below the Colby Fire burn area so water can flow into the flood-control channel.
The basin caught 3.2 billion gallons of water from this week's storms - enough to serve 78,000 people for a year, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works.