tmsteele101
By an edhat reader
In reviewing the FEMA flood predictive maps several months ago, it was amazing how prescient these long-standing documents were regarding the 2018 disaster in Montecito. These small watersheds have debris basins along East Mountain Drive. Unfortunately, these basins were overwhelmed by a worse-case scenario few people could imagine.
It can be unsettling to realize how vulnerable a community can be situated downstream from a presumably benign natural creek. Unfortunately immediately west of the devastating effects of the Tomas Fire Burn Zone lays the Sycamore Creek watershed, an area encompassing foothill range extending from Westmont College to Gibralter Rd, funneling down to the roundabout at A.P.S. and Montecito St. where the new bridge is being constructed. At this convergence of city streets meeting the fast traveling creek the flood water hits the flat land, the primordial alluvial plain of Santa Barbara’s east side community.
Any citizen residing in the lower east side would presume that Sycamore Creek would have a nicely maintained debris basin to intercept this kind of mudslide fire aftermath. If automobile-sized boulders could smash through the estates of Montecito, could the 100-year-old bungalows of Soledad St. fair any better? No…
A quarter of Santa Barbara central eastside flatland grid, Salinas St., Canada St, Soledad St., Voluntario St., Alisos St. have no debris basin upstream. Just like the residents of live Mill Rd., this working-class area has ten of thousands of Santa Barbara’s citizens living without a clue of the potential harm.
Let us not repeat 2018 again.
Y’know, if we demanded a risk free life maybe we should move to another planet. Kids can’t go to school without being shot at, in school not just on their way to it. Grannies can’t cross the road to get to the store without being run over by bicyclists, motorists, motorcyclists and even skateboarders or mom pushing prams. In Flint MI they still can’t drink the tap water… I can’t either in Noleta but for another reason entirely. And farmers won’t be able to bring their crops to market because Genius Leader got into an shouting match with China trying to prove his little hands have little to do with his thin skin.
Rocky Nook Park, up from the Mission, was formed by exactly the same type of event as the Jan 9 debris flow, so this really is nothing new. And for the commenter thinking people are asking for a “risk free” life, I don’t think anyone is asking for that. However, there is such a thing as risk mitigation. If you know that running out onto the 101 could cause serious injury or death, you don’t do it. You mitigate your risk. That doesn’t mean you won’t ever get hit by a car ever. See how that works.
The mountains will wash into the sea. You can count on it. Adapt or try to stop it?