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Clean-up, relief efforts begin in Indy |
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Friday, 18 July 2008 |
 Oak Creek and Fort Independence residents sign up for aid and relief at Tuesday’s town meeting. Many who lost their homes are receiving aid from the Red Cross, IMACA, friends and family members, as well as the Independence Civic Club, which has started a relief fund. Photo by Mike Gervais By Mike Gervais
Register Staff 7-17-2008
Though many lost their homes, vehicles and possessions in last weekend’s floods, when the residents of Independence met on Tuesday to discuss the disaster most were in high spirits and thankful for the time and energy rescue personnel dedicated to handling the disaster.
Many of the approximately 100 residents who attended Tuesday’s meeting were still muddy from clean-up efforts at their homes earlier in the day, but expressed nothing but gratitude towards the agencies that were involved in the flood relief effort.
A slew of local and state agencies were in attendance at the town meeting to answer questions and help residents begin to wade through the mess of insurance claims and short- and long-term arrangements for housing, clothing and more.
But first, local officials wanted to run through the course of events on Saturday and Sunday.
Inyo County Sheriff Bill Lutze opened the meeting with a brief slide show of the destruction caused by the 15-foot-tall wall of mud, water, boulders and trees as it made its way down Oak Creek from the Sierra, destroying 25 structures and numerous other outbuildings andvehicles.
“Seeing this devastation from the air is unbelievable compared to what you see on the ground,” Lutze said as he cycled through a series of photos showing vehicles buried in four feet of mud, trailers and campers smashed against trees and homes with mud splatters reaching almost to the roof.
The sheriff said his department received its first reports of flooding at about 5:45 p.m., at which time the Independence Volunteer Fire Department was sent out to Oak Creek.
The first calls of residents being flooded out by the mud slide came in at about 5:55 p.m. and the Sheriff’s Department was dispatched to the area.
But by that time “it was really a challenge to get in there due to the flows,” Lutze said.
The Sheriff’s Department, Independence Volunteer Fire Department and CalFire were the first responders wading through mud and debris to check on residents and evacuate those in the flood zone.
The Inyo County Search and Rescue team was also put on notice throughout the night “in case we had to do any swift-water rescues,” Lutze said.
“Both CalFire and the Independence Fire Department did an amazing job” of getting residents to safety, Lutze said.
At 8 p.m. Saturday Inyo County Chief Administrative Officer Kevin Carunchio declared a local state of emergency.
From there the Sheriff’s Department called an interagency meeting with a number of local agencies, including CalFire, the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Health and Human Services, Caltrans and others to set goals and manage the incident.
“The first thing was at first daylight to check every residence and every vehicle” to be sure no one was stranded or injured in the mud slide, Lutze said.
That was accomplished by 9 a.m. Sunday.
“Then we set goals to get (U.S.) 395 open, and at the same time we were doing rescues at the Mt. Whitney and Onion Valley trailheads,” where hikers were stranded due to washed-out roads, Lutze said.
As the storm intensified and the flood moved east, destroying homes and roads, eventually shutting down U.S. 395, the hotels and motels in Independence began to fill up.
“Thanks to the early notice by the sheriff, we were able to set up evacuation centers almost immediately,” said Inyo County Health and Human Services Director Jean Dickinson.
Approximately 130 people, residents and stranded visitors, took advantage of evacuation centers set up at the Owens Valley School and Big Pine Town Hall, Dickinson said.
The centers were closed Sunday afternoon, as the displaced residents began to move to hotels and the homes of friends and family members, and visitors were able to continue on their way as the California Highway Patrol started conducting police escorts through the damaged area of U.S. 395.
“Kevin Carunchio and Sheriff Lutze – they did everything right,” said California Office of Emergency Services representative Jim Acosta. He added that Carunchio’s declaration of a local emergency prompted a similar proclamation from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger “that puts state resources at the disposal of the county.”
Acosta said he would begin looking into the possibility of having state equipment brought to the area to help residents remove mud and debris from their homes and pull vehicles out of the streambeds created by the flooding.
Representatives from the Red Cross and the Inyo Mono Advocates for Community Action (IMACA) both took time at Tuesday’s meeting to offer their services to any residents affected by the flooding.
“If you’ve lost your homes, clothes and belongings, we can get you supplies in the beginning,” said Red Cross Representative Pat McNeil. She mentioned that all information collected by the Red Cross is kept confidential and invited residents to make an appointment to meet with representatives.
Any Independence resident who would like to meet with the Red Cross is invited to call (323) 356-3988.
Mike Murphy of IMACA also invited residents to meet up with his organization on Wednesday to receive food supplies.
He added that IMACA would be available to help residents with temporary housing arrangements and, in the future, with rebuilding homes.
According to Sheriff Lutze, his department is working on a master report that will be available on Monday. Residents will be able to send that report in to their insurance company to receive compensation for their losses during the mud slide.
Some residents at the town meeting had concerns about clean-up, as the streambed shifted to the south during the mud slide, and water is continuing to run through and past homes.
“There is no way to clean the mud out of the house until the stream is put back in its bed,” one resident explained.
Lutze said that the Army Corps of Engineers has been called to the area to assess the damage, and will be working on diverting the stream away from residents in the near future.
Another resident expressed anger at the U.S. Forest Service over its management of the Inyo Complex Fire, and asked what measures were taken to prevent a mud slide in the wake of last year’s blaze.
Inyo National Forest Post Fire Assessment Team Member Todd Ellsworth said that a team took stock of the fire damage and recognized the mud slide risk and that residents should have been contacted and advised on ways to protect themselves from erosion during the summer storm season.
Many residents said they were never contacted.
Ellsworth explained that the U.S. Forest Service did not conduct “hill slope treatments” above Oak Creek after the Inyo Complex Fire “because the terrain is rocky and too steep and the treatments we have available would not have been that effective” and would have had the potential to make possible mud slides worse by clogging ditches and culverts.
“We didn’t model for this,” Ellsworth said, noting that the Oak Creek area received a huge amount of rain – more than seven inches in just a few minutes before the rain meter was destroyed by the mud slide.
A flood relief fund has been set up by the Independence Civic Club to help those whose homes have been destroyed or damaged by the flooding. Donations may be sent to the Independence Civic Club, attention Flood Relief Fund, P.O. Box 482, Independence, CA 93526.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 08 August 2008 )
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