200 homes in L.A. County foothills ordered evacuated as powerful storms loom

[The Straight Story]

200 homes in L.A. County foothills ordered evacuated as powerful storms loom
December 21, 2010 | 3:48 pm

Los Angeles County issued evacuation orders Tuesday afternoon for more than 200 homes in La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta in anticipation of possible flash flooding as powerful thunderstorms head to Southern California.

Click here for an interactive explainer on mudslides The orders cover 147 homes in La Cañada Flintridge and 85 in La Crescenta. Residents should be out of their homes by 9 p.m. Tuesday night. Sheriff’s deputies are notifying families by knocking on their doors.

Residents are also being asked to remove their cars from certain streets in the area, which can shoot down hilly streets like projectiles during flooding and can send muddy water, tree branches and car-sized boulders flowing down streets as fast as 35 mph.

A slow-moving, intense storm in February caused destructive flooding in La Cañada Flintridge, damaging about 40 homes in the foothill suburb’s northernmost neighborhood, which sits just below the San Gabriel Mountains.

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