SEAL BEACH, Calif. — The sky was blue and the sun bright for the first time in days after a week of powerful Southern California rainstorms, but all Victoria Macey could see was the mountain of steaming trash and twisted debris on her favorite beach.
“I’m completely shocked,” Macey said as she photographed a sopping plastic baby doll propped atop an overturned end table. “From our house, all we could see was gorgeous clouds, and then we come down here and there’s so much trash. It’s really sad.”
The mounds of soggy sofa cushions, rusted shopping carts, plastic children’s toys, dented refrigerators and hundreds of plastic cans and food wrappers were just one calling card left by a week of punishing rain that pelted Southern California and went on to Arizona and New Mexico.
On Saturday, hundreds of residents who evacuated wildfire- scarred communities in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills north of Los Angeles returned home to assess the damage and remove mud and debris from their properties. There were no reports of major damage despite concerns about mudslides and debris flows from the relentless rain.
About half of the 500 residents of a small western Arizona farming community, evacuated after floodwaters swept through the town Thursday, returned Saturday.
Muddied streets and damaged homes and businesses remained. La Paz County sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Glenn Gilbert said the community was in cleanup mode.
On Saturday, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office identified the body of 6-year-old Jacob Baudek, who was swept away by rising water in central Arizona on Thursday. The body was spotted by hikers along the Agua Fria River and recovered from the riverbank.
