How much does it cost to mitigate mudflow? Some of the costs incurred from Montecito’s mudslides were $21.3 million for a debris basin, $6 million for steel net curtains, and $250,000 to clear nets after every storm event. What does it cost a community when mitigation is inadequate or non-existent? In the 2018 Montecito mudflow, the costs were 23 lives lost, $421 million in insurance claims, hundreds of homes damaged or destroyed, and more than 900 people trapped by flooding and rescued by public agencies.
In the wake of the disaster, the Los Angeles Times conducted an eight-month investigation that culminated in the article “Santa Barbara County knew mudslides were a risk. It did little to stop them.” The investigation found that “government officials did not heed decades-old warnings to build bigger basins that could have made mudslides far less catastrophic.”
Since January, the residents of Los Alamos continue to alert the Board of Supervisors that the development project by Legacy Homes in Los Alamos is located in a designated FEMA floodplain (2006) and is adjacent to the steep slopes of the Purisima Hills. As described in the Los Alamos Community Plan EIR (2011): “the low soil permeability and steep slopes (45-50 percent) of the surrounding hills combine to promote very rapid flash-flood type flooding conditions within the canyons and at the mouths of canyons where they discharge into the Los Alamos Valley.”