The flash flood and mudslide tragedies in Montecito scare and shock us with nature’s raw power, and yet the heroic rescue stories and performance of safety and rescue workers buoy us up again.
I worked in Montecito at Crane Country Day School for 36 years, and while we certainly witnessed a number of minor campus inundations on its western border next to San Ysidro Creek, there was nothing at this level.
Yet 36 years or 336 years is almost nothing in terms of geologic time.
The “paradise” of Santa Barbara justly celebrates its salubrious, temperate climate, the majestic ocean lapping at our pristine shores, and the low wall of jagged coastal mountains to the north.
Yet the nature goddesses and forces will not allow unalloyed perfection — not in the human breast, not in the cosmos, and definitely not in halcyon Santa Barbara.
Disruption and entropy remain Gaia’s norm — in early Greek mythology, she’s actually not a goddess but Ge, a raw natural force coming before the gods and accompanied by forces such as Chaos and Eros.
Santa Barbara geologist Ed Keller has said that all of Santa Barbara is built on debris flows piled up during the past 60,000 years. Around 1100 A.D., a truly massive debris flow slammed through Rattlesnake Canyon into Mission Canyon, leaving large boulders as far down as the intersection of Alamar Avenue and State Street (go check).
There were Chumash villages in the area, and they may have been completely wiped out then. While some saddened Montecitans claim that sudden flash floods and debris flows should have been forecast more accurately, this seems impossible.
So while natural forces constantly change the beautiful Santa Barbara I’ve known and enjoyed since 1966, we’ve been spared ones like the catastrophic 1100 A.D. event.
Amid the enchanting seascapes such as Rincon and landscapes such as Rattlesnake Canyon, our western Eden is still occasionally beset by sudden, violent, earth events that humans find “tragic,” but other species perforce accept. Some species, like our dominant chaparral, even reap advantages from the fires and floods.
Earthquake, wildfire, flash floods and catastrophic mudflows (debris flows) have afflicted “Santa Barbara” long before the anglo settlers moved in, and obviously before the Native Americans arrived around 13,000 years ago.
Keller refers to a debris flow from around 60,000 years ago that underlies much of Santa Barbara.
The recent Thomas Fire has burned more than 440 square miles (larger than the entire San Rafael Wilderness), and in less than five days it tore through chaparral and fruit orchards stretching from Santa Paula to the ridges behind Carpinteria.
The fire burned out Hot Springs Canyon, Romero Canyon, Cold Spring Canyon and other steep canyons, razing the plants that hold the soil together.
Until the deadly Montecito mudflows blew out in the early morning of Jan. 9, Santa Barbara had been marginally fortunate, since the loss of homes from the Thomas Fire had been very low compared, say, with 1964’s Coyote Fire (more than 300 homes lost), 1977’s Sycamore Fire that incinerated 195 homes or the Tea Fire (less than 2,000 acres but 210 homes lost), among many recent conflagrations such as the Gap, Jesusita, Rey and Whittier fires (just declared out recently), to list but a few.
“Fortunate” is a relative term. How many Santa Barbara residents recall being trapped by hazardous smoke and ash from the Thomas Fire, and earlier from the huge Zaca Fire of 2007? Local flora and fauna have been negatively affected, as well as the humans’ coughing lungs.
Just as our area began to recover and the 8,000 brave firefighters had turned the Thomas Fire back from invading farther into the expansive Montecito estates, last week’s heavy rainstorm and microbursts then pounded the seared watershed above Montecito.
In the early morning of Jan. 9, Gaia’s wild precipitation exceeded one inch per hour, and in a “perfect storm” situation struck precisely those very steep canyons the Thomas Fire had charred. (See Melinda Burns’ Noozhawk article by clicking here.)
Keller’s early local research confirmed geologist G.K. Gilbert’s hypothesis “that the slowest flowing areas of a stream at low flow become the fastest areas at high flow” — sadly confirmed in Montecito on the lower areas near Casa Dorinda (see Karen Telleen-Lawton’s Canyon Voices, page 19, and 4.1.1 below).
We can agree that the combination of Thomas Fire damage and nature’s freak rainstorm caused the lethal flash floods and debris flows lashing Montecito, leaving at least 21 dead at the time of this writing.
In John McPhee’s classic book The Control of Nature (1989), he states that “in the course of a conflagration, chaparral soil, which is not much for soaking up water in the first place, experiences a chemical change and, a little below its surface, becomes waterproof” (page 212). Burns’ article terms this a “‘hydrophobic’ layer in the ground.”
McPhee adds several horror stories about destructive mudflows and debris flows (different than mudslides) in our neighboring San Gabriel Mountains. This section is labeled “Los Angeles against the mountains,” while our disaster could be termed “Montecito against the mudflows.”
We can learn more by hiking through and comparing deep Rattlesnake Canyon, just west of the afflicted Montecito canyons, which was not burned but is similarly steep. Rattlesnake parallels the Cold Spring (West and East), Hot Springs and Romero canyons. For the most part, the Thomas Fire did not burn above Rattlesnake Canyon. (Click here for a related article by Ray Ford.)
I was wild to get outside and roam into the hills after the Thomas Fire smoke had lifted, so I hiked Rattlesnake Canyon early on Jan. 8 and again on Jan. 10, the day after the Montecito microbursts and tragedies.
While it did not have to endure the rainfall intensities hammering those unlucky Montecito canyons farther east, Rattlesnake got 2 inches of rain on the same Tuesday morning. On that Wednesday, I observed a perfectly customary rain impact in the creek where I’ve been trudging since the early 1970s.
In the muddy pool seen in the photograph, orange bay tree leaves have been lifted up about 18 inches, but no boulders have been moved by the force of the overflowing creek. On Jan. 10, the water has settled back to the levels I had observed earlier, although some of the mud is black, indeed, from floating ash and cinders from the Thomas Fire.
Looking north up Rattlesnake Canyon to where the well-known Tin Shack Meadow sits, you can see the line of Gibraltar Road higher up, and I did not detect any burn areas from this position hiking up, although reports indicate there are a few small ones.
Arriving at the Tin Shack Meadow about 1.7 miles above the parking place at Skofield Park (see 4.1.1), it was abundantly clear that Rattlesnake Canyon is literally in another more beneficial world compared to the devastated canyons to the east, especially Hot Springs, Cold Spring and Romero.
At the top of the meadow, the hiker encounters a Y junction: left (west) takes you on the Tunnel (Connector) Trail above Mission Canyon, which is passable; a right turn (east) leads up an extremely steep and rocky trail to Gibraltar Road (misspelled as “Gibralter” on the iron sign shown in the photo). There weren’t any signs of fire or destructive flash flood impacts here, either.
Sophocles the Greek dramatist wrote that we must not think a human’s life happy or ideal until after she or he has died:
We should not speak of one that prospers well
As happy, till his life has run its course
Likewise, for those of us living the Santa Barbara idyll and in Montecito’s parallel paradise, we cannot judge these areas ideal for humans since our glorious Edens often have been subjected to Gaia’s violent embraces, sometimes with little or no warning.
Sudden wildfires, shattering earthquakes (e.g., a 6.8 in Santa Barbara in 1925), and perfect storms’ flash floods barreling through our canyons prove Sophocles’ judgment can be applied to landscapes as well as to individual human lives.
Buddha contended that “the trouble is, you think you have time … ” but you may not — so take those kids of yours to the nonflooded canyons and creeks such as Rattlesnake Canyon, Tunnel Trail, Jesusita Trail and the Bill Wallace Trail.
4.1.1.
» Karen Telleen-Lawton, Canyon Voices (2006), pages 18-27, on Ed Keller and the geology of our frontside canyons, particularly Rattlesnake Canyon.
— Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity, and has written extensively about the local backcountry. He serves as an archaeological site steward for the U.S. Forest Service in the Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at cazmania3@gmail.com. Click here to read additional columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
