Los Angeles Mud Clean-Up Could Take Months

16, 2015 photo Jen Dunnagan, right, and Rochelle Price get emotional walking through their Lancaster home after four feet of water and mud entered their home in Lancaster, Calif. on Thursday.

Cleanup is under way this weekend from the major mudslides due to flash flooding and thunderstorms in a section of Southern California that trapped hundreds of cars on a highway.

Drainage systems also needed to be cleared along an 8-mile stretch of the highway about 80 miles north of downtown Los Angeles, said Florene Trainor, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation.

California Highway Patrol Officer Tony Polizzi says officials now expect the important highway to reopen around 2 p.m.

One witness quoted in the LA Times report said that he looked to his left and saw what looked like a waterfall pouring from a canyon, and the mud suddenly swooped in between the vehicles, stalling them there.

The violent storms, which started on Thursday, October 15 unleashed thick mud that trapped the vehicles along State Route 58 in Kern County.

To the south, Los Angeles County crews Sunday reopened stretches of five roads in mountain communities also inundated during the flooding.

Sheriff’s deputies checked on the occupants of almost 800 homes in the area to make sure everyone inside was safe, their department said in a statement.

She says her father, an avid camper, is well schooled in surviving in the rugged desert area where a fierce thunderstorm struck Thursday.

The most serious mudslides occurred in Los Angeles Country’s Antelope Valley.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before”.

But “it was a flash flood that happened so quickly – 4 to 6 inches of rain in a short period of time”, Bowen said, adding that the agency alerted drivers as best it could and worked with other agencies to divert traffic from affected roadways.

Highway crews worked to plow away mud and debris from the freeway, and free trapped cars. It could continue to get worse for the state, with drought conditions still deeply set in and the promise of El Nino bringing heavy rains to the state.

To the east, severe weather hit Nevada and Arizona on Sunday. He said more than that could be damaged, but crews had to bust through blocked roads before they could get an exact count.