Big Mud flow on PCH near Big Rock is blocked off with K-rail

Caltrans has put K-rail around a major mud flow that has covered two lanes of Pacific Coast Highway east of Big Rock.

The small canyons and goat gullies above the highway have dumped mud and rocks onto the highway … part of the continuing fire-related hazards on Malibu’s main road.

But putting K-rail on the road … the state is certainly indicating that the hazard is expected to continue for some time. 

And so will the traffic restrictions … no general traffic on the highway to Santa Monica. 

K-rail has been placed on the inland side of the road from Topanga Beach to Big Rock.

Last night … heavy construction vehicles were observed working on PCH in the dark .. including truckloads of K-rail being unloaded last night. 

A landslide remains on PCH traffic lanes west of Big Rock … east of Gladstones. 

State Says TCB Reopening May Be Months Away

Caltrans officials say they are several months away from reopening Topanga Canyon Boulevard to full traffic between the village and Pacific Coast Highway.

The state officials said they aim to open one lane “to essential business travel during dedicated times and with an escort and possibly shuttles.” But they said the lower canyon first must be deemed safe.

This week’s storms brought additional debris down to the wrecked highway, which has a major washout about 2 miles north of PCH, and a major landslide above it.

A gigantic rock precariously clinging to the top of a cliff was blasted apart Feb. 24.

At least 33,000 cubic yards of mud and debris came down after the last storm.

Engineers have determined that retaining walls must be built in three locations, one specifically to replace guardrail and to rebuild the shoulder and lane where the road washed away.

Rebuilding the washed out shoulder and lane will take at least a month, once a design is in place.

In the middle of this, Southern California Edison will now undertake previously planned work to out its power lines underground.

And the only water supply to Topanga Canyon was exposed when the road washed away, and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works wants to re-route it.

All mud and debris that came down onto the highway is being pushed to the side of the road and will be tested. 

Clean dirt will be sent to Oxnard farms for reuse. 

To date, all dirt has tested clean.

Malibu Council Writes New Coastal Plan And Codes For Fire Areas

Malibu’s city council met for another six hours last night … hammering out the nuts and bolts for new Plannign Department rules for the city.

It was the second six-hour session in two nights … and those came the next nights after a planning workshop that also went late into that night.

Again … city council member Bruce Silverstein complained tha the process was rushed.

He particularly objected to the process of going through the changes line by line. … in open public session. 

71048 DELIB SILV RIGG

“I’ve been involved in drafting statutes that have affected substantial things for many, many years and when we have an issue like this where there’s potential ambiguity such 10 years from now, somebody will be faced with a problem, trying to understand exactly what this means we don’t just do it on the fly. 

“We spend a lot of time making a lot of time making sure we get the words exactly right.

COUNCIL MEMBER MARIANNE RIGGINS: “We are spending a lot of time making sure we are getting the words right. So ….”

MAYOR DOUG STEWART: “I understand the issue, but we have to get through this.”

Bruce Silverstein … rejoined by  Council Member Marianne Riggins and then the mayor … Doug Stewart.

Among changes … the city changed the planning code to allow victims of any natural disaster to rebuild existing houses .. even if the structures had previously violated planning rules.

And rebuild them with a 10 percent increase. 

But not to rebuild them with a violation of the height requirements of 18 feet inland … and 28 feet on the oceanfront. 

One big issue is the governor’s order that allows palisades Fire victims to have their houses rebuilt with the same size. 

But the rest  of the city will continue to have a different rule … not the size of a replacement house … but the bulk of the replacement.

It’s a difference with a big meaning. 

As Councilman Bruce Silverstein put it… a rebuild with the same maximum dimensions can look a lot bigger … if the rebuild replaces the former house that had lots of angles … and replaces it with a big box. 

71049 SILV BULK 

“You could say I want to add 10% to my height, and that means you now could fill in the entire floor, plus raise it 10 percent because that was the hioeght of the building.

“But that’s giving you 30 to 40 percent more square footage.” 

The problem is … the governor’s order for the Palisades Fire victims mentions only height and width … not bulk. 

So those people can supersize their replacement houses by 10 percent … with no concern for the bulk.

Victims of previous fires … even the Franklin Fire just one month before the Palisades Fire … they will continue to be regulated by the city’s planning codes.

And the planning codes continue to consider bulk. 

Th eopther big issue was the FEMA floor plan rules, 

Beachfront houses that burned in eastern Malibu will have to have a finished floor elevation that has to be raised to meet new FEMA floods zone requirements.

What about houses that burned down that were built before the city zoning limits … with 28 foot maximum roofs … were set??

Some of those houses were up to 100 years old … and some of them wildly exceeded the cities height limit … up to 50 feet high. 

The city council spent a lot of time on that one. 

Here’s what they came up with … as best as we can summarize.

The height of the replacement structure … from the finished floor to the roof may remain the same as existed for the structure that that previously existe … even if the structure was nonconforming in height.

But no increased height shall be allowed for the replacement structures above the current height limits … which vary from 24 to 28 feet … plus the FEMA minimum.

And… as we have reported … those FEMA minimums may be 4 to 8 feet higher than PCH … even though the FEMA science has been widely circled in Malibu as being wildly inaccurate and overblown. 

The city council had hoped to reduce any logjams at the city plan check … by allowing qualified professionals to certify to the city that their plans were accurate and met all applicable rules. 

In many cases  … state law doesn’t allow that.

Assistant city manager Alexis brown. 

71046 SELFCERTIFY ALEXIS 

“The California building code does require the sign so even in those areas and we need to we need to flush out what certification would look like in Malibu, which would be a completely separate discussion.

“But you would still want our building official to receive and certify anything that would be being b but we would need to we would need to look more closely as to what that would would be.”

And the city decided to allow temporary houses to be placed on burned out lots. 

But to crack down on people who abused the rules … added cheap prefab houses as a temporary measure … and then kept them.

Not an abstract discussion.

City building safety director Yolanda Bundy says three so-called temporary structures … brought in after the woolsey Fire … are now the subject of enforcement action. 

71047 ILLEGAL ADUs

“We have three parcels that after the house was completed and now they’re in their code enforcement, and the property owners either are submitting a application for an ADU (Auxiliary Dwelling Unit), or are going through the prosecutors office.”

City staff will now take the hours of public testimony … and hours of city council debate … and boil those down into legal language to amend the city building plans … and the city’s coastal plan.

Both of those are on a tight timetable … with approval next week necessary to get them up to the Coastal commission for action next month. 

Still No Cause For Pali Fire, But SCE Is Sued By LA County For Eaton Fire

The cause of the fire that destroyed Pacific Palisades and eastern Malibu has not yet been determined,

But evidence is clear that the MRCA parklands next to the fire origin were overgrown with weeds and brush.

The Mountans Recreation and Conservation Authority has a private fire department … and its actions as the fire spread across MRCA-administered state-owned land were ineffective and almost comical. 

But what caused the fire is not yet known.

In eastern LA County … the simultaneous Eatn Fire looks lie to have bene caused by malfunctioning Southern California Edison tpwers.

LA County on Wednesday sued SCE for its alleged role in the devastating Eaton fire.

That fire .. the same day as the Palisades Fire … destroyed about 9,000 homes and killed 17 people. 

More than 40 people have already sued Edison … and the cities of Pasadena and Sierra Madre also plan to sue the p[ower company. 

“All evidence is pointing to them,” said Scott Kuhn, an attorney for the county who spearheaded the suit.

County Budget In Bad Shape, Hiring Freeze May Be Needed

Los Angeles County may need a hiring freeze … as its 45 billion dollar budget is facing a major squeeze.

Recent wildfires, a flood of sex abuse lawsuits and a White House threatening to slash funding.

Without a hiring freeze, Chief Executive Fesia Davenport warned county supervisors in a March 4 letter that “the situation could devolve into a fiscal crisis.”

Davenport appeared in front of the supervisors Tuesday to get permission to start implementing the freeze. 

The LA Times reports that supervisors told her they want more details before enacting the hiring freeze.

Follow The Money: State Farm And Other Insurance Giants Refuse State Request To Ease Paperwork For Victims

State Farm Insurance and other major companies are refusing to comply with a request from the California Insurance Commissioner … a request to spare people whose houses were destroyed by wildfires form having to compel complete inventories of their lost belongings.

State Farm and the other big companies will continue to require fire victims to list every spoon … every book … every shirt in order to collect damage claims.

The New York Times reports the big companies will not bend in its requirement for complete … itemized lists.

Putting those together is a major headache for people who have just lost everything. 

Consumer advocates have argued that requiring a full inventory may be reasonable in the case of a partial loss.

But it is unwieldy and unfair when a household has lost everything. 

The recent wildfires destroyed more than 16,000 structures in the Southland … 700 of them in Malibu. 

Other major national insurers, including Allstate, Liberty Mutual/Safeco and the Travelers Group, also rejected the regulator’s appeal. 

Collectively … the companies that refused to pay without itemization insure over 39 percent of homes in California.

Consumer advocates say the insurance companies can make big bucks by hassling policyholders for itemized lists. 

“The insurer knows, the more you shift the burden back to the survivor, the less you’ll have to pay” one told the New York Times. 

Many homeowners simply give up, leaving money on the table.

In Altadena … a Facebook group has discovered that they all were issued an offer to accept 80- cents on the dollar in exchange for the Triple A home insurance company giving them a waiver on the itemization requirement.

The average loss per customer … 80 thousand dollars. 

Hundreds of Topanga Refugees Find New Home In Santa Barbara County

Refugees who were burned out of Topanga Beach have been relocated to the Santa Barbara area … hundreds of them.

Lance Orozco from KCLU reports … it was a special rescue effort.

Endangered Southern California steelhead living trout living in Topanga Creek were threatened by ash and fire debris from the Palisades Fire being washed into the creek.

In January … the state Department of Fish and Wildlife launched a rescue operation with a small army of people from different agencies.

They caught 271 of the fish … which were were moved to the Fillmore Fish Hatchery.

Five of them died … but the 266 fish that survived have just been moved to Arroyo Hondo Creek … that’s a small stream on the Gaviota coast … 80 miles west of Zuma Beach. 

The hope is to eventually re-introduce some of the fish into Topanga Creek, but biologist now say because of the level of action debris pollution. It could be years before the water is clean enough to support them in Topanga Creek. 

KBUU’s engineers are Michelle Bradley, Josh Bohn. Mike Hutchens, Diane Laetz, Richard Stutsman, Jim Toten and Mike Worrell.

Newscast editor … Diane Laetz.