Flood Warning

On Sunday night, January 7th, 2018, we were having a lovely dinner party with our friends, Jim and Mary Morouse and John and Tania Burke here at our home. We had returned Bryce to Cate School that afternoon after a nearly 6 week break due to the Thomas Fire. During our dinner, Mary informed us that her daughter had just sent a text message stating that their home was now in a mandatory evacuation zone for the next several days due to the risk of a flood or mudslide danger. Susan and I received a text message from the Santa Barbara Office of Emergency Management notifying us that we were under 'Voluntary Evacuation' for the same time period. This alert was due to an upcoming storm and the fact that the hillsides had burned recently -- meaning that the chances of flooding and/or major mudslides or debris flows were higher than usual. Since all three couples had evacuated for several weeks due to the Thomas Fire, this was not welcome news.

We also received a notification from Cate School that any local boarders could choose to go home on Monday as there would be no school Monday or Tuesday due to the potential flooding.  We were disappointed to hear that Bryce was going to have to come home again given that he had just returned to school after an extended break due to the Thomas Fire. My feeling was that we were not in immediate danger here at Montecito Valley Ranch since the creek that runs near our home had held up quite well during previous storm events, including the El Nino Storms of 1998.

We decided to pick up Bryce on Monday and bring him home. We figured we would get him back to school on Wednesday when the storm or flood danger had passed. Since the NCAA National Football Championship was on TV on Monday night, I was happy to have another 'Man' in the house to watch the game. We had a nice dinner, watched the game and went to bed around 11 pm. The predicted rain had not started yet and I was beginning to wonder if they had overestimated the storm . . .