WEBVTT

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During rainfall events in january santa

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Barbara county California received 11

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inches of rain , which filled many of

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the county's debris basins to capacity

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fema , asked the Los Angeles district

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to support a debris removal mission in

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the county . The district deployed team

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members to provide technical assistance

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for the mission . What we're doing here

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um , For Santa Barbara County at this

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time is to provide technical assistance

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to the county . Um , some of our

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experience uh , from the 2018 ,

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event is we're sharing some of that ,

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some of the things that we learned ,

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some of its contracting um methods and

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uh , and removal of the disposal of the

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debris that we're pulling from the

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basins . Um , we're helping them to

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answer some of the questions they have

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regarding those issues . It's important

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that the county do the work to remove

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the debris that's in this basin uh , as

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quickly as possible because they want

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to be prepared for the next storm . Um ,

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when there's uh , an excessive amount

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of debris Uh , in the basin has a

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possibility of plugging the towers ,

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the drains that drain the waters from

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this basin and uh , it's actually

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protecting the residents downstream of

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this basin . This mission was

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reminiscent of one in January 2018

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following an early morning debris flow

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in Montecito California that took the

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lives of 23 people . Then district Team

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members assisted santa Barbara County

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with clearing out and removing debris

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from 11 of the county's debris basins

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over a three month period In 2018 .

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When I was here , we saw a lot of large

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boulders , large debris that had come

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from the upstream hillsides . Some of

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these boulders were 2030 ft tall .

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We had to have the contractor break

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them up with hydraulic hammers to break

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them down so they'd be small enough to

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haul away in trucks . Um , we haven't

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seen any evidence of , of rock that's

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anywhere near the sizes that we saw at

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that time . So , uh , this allows the

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trucks to haul the debris and rock and

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vegetation out of here much faster than

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what they did in 2018 .