Glendora Residents Pick Up Sandbags For Anticipated Flooding
GLENDORA (CBSLA.com) — In anticipation of this week's rain, the city of Glendora has filled 3,000 sandbags for residents in the Colby Fire burn area.
CBS2's Joy Benedict said the City Yard was a busy place on Sunday, with pick up trucks pulling up continuously as homeowners grabbed all the sand they could.
Terry Reynolds of Glendora said he was there "to get the sandbags to divert the mud we will have in our driveway."
Early this month Reynolds, like many other residents, was caught off guard when the rains came.
"We had some mud in our garage a little, so we were ill prepared for that one coming in the middle of the night," Reynolds said.
All across the foothills on Sunday homeowners were stacking sandbags and cleaning gutters while firefighters dropped off supplies.
Jeff Emery of Glendora was already blocking off his driveway.
"We could get 3-4 inches, Tuesday alone," Emery said, noting that before the last storm, when about a half-inch of rain fell, "8-9 inches of mud came up the driveway."
On Rainbow Drive, the homes sat devastatingly close to to the Colby Fire, which tore through the area in January, charring 1,700 acres above them. With little vegetation left, there's nothing to hold back the water and the mud when the storm hits.
The city placed more than a miles worth of K-rails in and around the foothills in February, right after the Colby Fire, and they're going to be in place for three to five years, extra protection the residents are thankful for.
"It helps divert the water and mud, primarily mud and rocks," Emery said.
The K-rails provide a needed barrier against an area with a history of mudslides, and Glendora residents hope with a little muscle and sand they can hold back the mountain and hold on to their homes.
