Officials are scrambling to avoid a repeat of the weekend's hillside mudslides that damaged 43 homes in La Cañada Flintridge and La Crescenta and left many scratching their heads over the apparent lack of emergency preparations.
Workers hurried Sunday to empty debris basins once filled with mud in anticipation of mid-week rains feared to further endanger homes on hillsides denuded by last summer's wildfires.
Although today's forecast predicted mostly sunny skies and a high near 60 degrees, a 20 percent chance of rain was expected to increase to a 40 percent chance of rain by Tuesday night and a 30 percent chance of rain Wednesday morning.
Earlier Sunday, evacuation orders were lifted for residents in the mudslide area where at least nine of the mud-damaged homes were uninhabitable - possibly permanently. Some 540 residences had been evacuated in the foothill areas of La Crescenta, Acton, Altadena and La Cañada Flintridge.
"This is such a pretty community to live in, but not right now," said a tearful Donna McLaughlin, whose La Cañada Flintridge home was flooded by Saturday's mud flow.
Some local officials on Sunday demanded that the federal government pay for mud removal, blaming the mudslide damage on the U.S. Forest Service for scaling back firefighting efforts too early after the Station Fire broke out in late August.
La Cañada Flintridge Mayor Laura Olhasso blasted the U.S. Forest Service for allowing mud to flow from federal land into residential neighborhoods - a complaint similar to one made earlier by Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich.
"I call on the federal government to take the responsibility to help our residents pay for cleaning up the mud," Olhasso said at a news conference in her mud-ravaged community. "The federal government must take responsibility for their mud that is coming out of their hills."
In an interview, Olhasso said she personally spoke to U.S. Rep. David Dreier, R-San Dimas, Sunday morning asking the area's congressman for help in getting the country's Federal Emergency Management Agency to quickly provide assistance to residents.
The cost for clearing homes and yards of mud can cost individual residents tens of thousands of dollars, Olhasso said.
"There is no source of funding for residents to clean up their homes, their yards or their private streets," said Olhasso. "Those thousands of dollars for that cleanup comes out of their pockets."
Touring the disaster area Sunday morning, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger attempted to comfort Karineh Mangassarian, who was visibly devastated that her home had been inundated by more than two feet of mud.
"I want to save my house, but by the time the city gets here it will be too late," said Mangassarian, who told the governor she wanted crews to start digging her house out immediately.
Schwarzenegger pledged to cut red tape to find disposal sites for thousands of truckloads of debris that must be removed from houses, yards, streets and catch basins - and to create a blue-ribbon panel to look into the Forest Service's responsibility.
"It's important for us to come out, right now, and say `What can we do to help?"' said Schwarzenegger, who expressed concern that the three county sites set aside for mud disposal might not be enough.
Some residents complained that the evacuation notice on Saturday's storm had come too late, unlike the heavy rains in January when officials repeatedly warned foothill communities to be on alert.
Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman said that by the time officials realized the severity of the storm, it was too late to order evacuations for some and that it was determined it would be safer for them to remain in their homes.
"We are operating just like everyone else, based on weather predictions," Freeman said.
About 1,000 county workers were deployed Sunday and used bulldozers, plows, dump trucks and cranes to sweep neighborhood streets and attempt to clear out inlets and debris basins.
"In my 20 years of fire service, this is the first time I've seen this much devastation caused by a weather system," said Los Angeles County Fire Battalion Chief Mike Brown.
More than 3 inches of rain fell on most of the foothills during Saturday's downpour - a total below last month's weeklong storm - but the clogged catch basin and the cumulative effect of the rain apparently contributed to the mud flows.
A massive boulder clogged the important Mullally debris basin at the top of Ocean View Boulevard early Saturday, and other basins protecting homes on several cul-de-sacs also overflowed with rivers of mud and wildfire debris.

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