Debris Dam Collapses On Trancas Creek – Joe Edmiston’s Mud Closes PCH – 2nd Rainiest Month In 23 Years at Trancas

=. The rainfall may have stopped … but the rockfalls continue.

=  Malibu Canyon Road reopened now … a large boulder fell last night near the tunnel.

=. A debris detention dam gave way on Trancas Creek …  sending a huge pulse of water past Malibu West.

=.  No houses were flooded … the channel held the storm surge.

=.  Power back on in midtown Malibu … PCH is reopened. 

=.  Covid 19 testing will be mandatory this weekend at Malibu schools … before classes resume next week.

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You are listening to the latest news from Radio Malibu.

Support for KBUU’s radio covers from Orbit Homes Inc. 

Prefabricated homes are the future of construction. Easy to get permits. Fast to build and install. Cost effective … little construction waste. 

In Malibu, Orbit Homes has a showroom between City Hall and the Malibu racquet club.

Fire victims can check them out in person … and visit them on the web at www.orbithomes.us .

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Malibu is drying out after the rainiest month in more than 20 years.

All roads are open this morning.

Some parts of Malibu got more than 8 inches of rain over the last 2 1/2 days. 

Scary moments yesterday in Trancas Canyon.

Heavy timbers that were erected to create a debris dam gave way early yesterday morning on Trancas creek. 

The Timbers were about 8 feet high with cracks in the middle … to allow water to pass through. 

They created a large pond upstream from the Malibu West subdivision.

The wooden timbers gave way at some point early in the morning… resulting a surge of stormwater and debris from the Woolsey Fire coursing down Trancas Creek. 

No flooding was reported… both the upper canyon’s earthen creek channel … and the lower canyon’s concrete flood control channel … held the surge. 

Trancas Creek was flowing bank to bank and about four feet below the Pacific Coast Highway bridge… out to sea.

Nearly 8 inches of rain fell in upper Malibu Canyon in the last 48 hours. 

There were no major downpours … however … and the local flood control channels seem to be working. 

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The one major exception was a long Pacific Coast Highway west of Puerco Canyon Road.

The hillside next to the road burned in the wildfire of 2007… and the dirt embankment send large amounts of mud and glue down to the highway whenever there is significant rain.

13 years ago in 2008… Caltrans proposed fixing the embankment… Stabilizing it and putting in drains. 

That would have needed permission of the landowner next-door… The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. 

According to Caltrans officials at the time… Executive Director Joe Edmiston refused to allow Caltrans on the property.

No confirmation on that from Edmiston or the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy … back in 2008.

Bottom line is this … mud is flowing off the property of one outside government agency onto another outside agency’s highway … closing the road sometimes  … making it very slick other times. 

Malibu was cut in half yesterday and those two agencies think that is acceptable.

The only available detour being the 101 Freeway and the one lane only Malibu Canyon Road… which had its own landslide problems during the storm.

One lane was closed for a few hours as city crews cleared a small landslide near Hughes Research Lab. 

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Talk about nostalgia … Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu was the lead story on the CBS evening news last night.

The flooding Arroyo Sequit … as the water got higher and higher in the campground at Leo Carrillo State Park.

About 50 people were escorted out of their RVs and trailers during the early morning yesterday.

Snow closed Interstate 5 over the Grapevine for hours on Thursday.

The Grapevine was reopened around 4:40 p.m.,

As for the weather the next seven days will be dry.

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It will be dry through at least the middle of next week. Skies will be mostly clear. Afternoon high temperatures will remain several degrees below normal. 

There will be breezy conditions through and below passes and canyons tonight through Sunday morning.

Our rainfall records go back 24 years … and this was by far the biggest single storm in that time.

The month of December saw 11 inches of rainfall at Trancas. 

We’ve been keeping records for 23 years… and only January 2005 had more rain in one month. 

That record was 15.3 inches of rain…

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COVID-19 hospitalizations rising faster in California than at any other point in the pandemic.

20198 new cases in L A County … and that it’s just at the public reporting sites.

Tens of thousands of home tests are not counted into that official total.

All the COVID-19 metrics are surging across L.A. County.

That includes the number of cases, hospitalizations, outbreaks, and the positivity rate. 

In Malibu …  993 cases officially reported.

That is up about 200 in the past 10 days.

Yesterday’s LA County positive case count of 20,198 is more than triple the number of cases reported last week.

The daily positivity rate has also doubled in the last week, increasing from 10.9% to 20.4%

L.A. County’s weekly case rate is up nearly fourfold …. to 724 new cases per 100,000 residents, with continued very high transmission countywide.

And the very sickest are showing up in hospitals.

1,251 people are currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in LA County.

That’s a 67% increase from one week ago.

51 hundred Californians are hospitalized with Ciov 19 right noew. 

That is one fourth the number hospitalized one year ago … before widespread vaccination.

Nursing homes being slammed.

There are currently 494 open outbreak investigations.  This is a ten-fold increase over the number of investigations we had open at this time last week.

Testing sSupplies re running out at testing centers. 

L A County is still offering to mail you a self test … you can sign up at covid19lacounty.gov .

Clinics in Malibu are offering the tests …

But the CVS drug store at Malibu civic center said they have no tests in stock last night. 

The number of children with the disease is exploding in hospitals in New England.

That has not been seen yet here on the West Coast.

Yesterday came reports that a third vaccine shot against COVID-19 could be approved for 12- to 15-year-olds next week. 

Malibu schools will be testing students and employees this Sunday … a negative COIVD test is mandatory before setting foot on campus.

School resumes Monday in the elementary schools … middle and high school kids return Tuesday.

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Another flop recall effort in the Santa Monica Malibu school district.

No signatures were turned in by the deadline.

The most recent petition drive targeted school board members Laurie Lieberman, Maria Leon-Vasquez and Jon Kean . 

The Santa Monica Daily Press reports that no one from the recall effort responded to requests for comment.

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Now taking orders for special Christmas gift packages … and special yuletide brews.

Find Malibu Brewing Company premium craft beer in select retailers, or order direct at brew malibu dot com.

Malibu Brewing Company, Malibu California.

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