Longtime winemaker Fred Brander and his son, Nik, were trapped on their Montecito property when the mountains turned to mush during the January 9 debris flow and needed the help of a passing fire engine to escape. When they returned two weeks later, Brander found his house unscathed but the entire landscape transformed, the trees covered in mud, the creek bed filled to the brim.
Crews were already digging out of the culverts, with plans to take the dirt to Los Alamos. “Well, I have a ranch in Los Olivos that’s a little closer,” Brander told the crew, and they took him up on his offer. “That’s how we got to get ahold of 60 truckloads of dirt and rock.”
His initial thought was that the boulders harvested from the 900 tons of earth might make nice landscaping; he used materials he collected following a Highway 154 widening project years ago for just such purposes. “Then I also thought that this stuff that’s been burned or partially burned would be really good for the soil,” said Brander, explaining that wood ash is often added to vineyards to deliver minerals and nutrients.