As Southern California braced for heavy rainstorms that could bring flooding, Yorba Linda officials said Monday that they plan to use a reverse 911 system to warn residents about potential mudslides this week, even though the network didn't work properly during the recent wildfire.
The system called some residents long after the Nov. 15 blaze had swept through their neighborhoods. It took up to six hours from the time fire officials ordered evacuations in parts of Yorba Linda for the emergency calls to be made to residents in the fire zone, according to data provided by the Orange County Fire Authority and the county's executive office.
AlertOC is operated by the county and uses computer databases of addresses to call large numbers of residents at one time.
Yorba Linda officials said the lag may have been because the system was only a few months old and the city and county did not yet have a process for passing along the evacuation notices.
But since the fire, the city and county have worked out an agreement in which the city has control over the alert messages, city spokesman Mark Aalders said.
"These are things we're fixing and it shouldn't be an issue," he said, adding that in light of the recent incident, the county accelerated bringing the city on board.
As forecasters predicted heavy rain and thunderstorms to hit Southern California today, officials and residents in Yorba Linda, Brea, Anaheim Hills, Montecito and parts of the San Fernando Valley -- areas hit by destructive fires -- braced for possible mudslides.
Worker Jose Amezcua-Morales wiped sweat from his brow Monday, taking a moment to catch his breath after five hours of heaving orange sandbags up Aliso Canyon in Porter Ranch. He had a few more hours to finish laying 3,000 sandbags up and down the canyon, racing with fellow workers to build barriers to prevent mudslides. Next to him was a hillside covered in fresh, light green mulch; below him, hundreds of homes nestled in their gated communities against a blackened hillside.
Forecasters said the storm would bring the most rain the region had experienced in more than nine months -- with as much as half an inch per hour at its heaviest -- but was expected to taper off in time for Thanksgiving evening.
Flash flood warnings were in effect throughout areas recently ravaged by fires in Los Angeles, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties for this afternoon through Wednesday evening, when heaviest rains were expected.
