After heavy rains batter Orange County, crews work to clean and clear the mess left behind

Cleanup crews got to work Friday, a day after heavy rains battered Southern California, flooding some areas and leaving behind a mess of mud, rocks, tree branches and other debris that led to road closures and other problems.

In Orange County, crews with Orange County Public Works were out in Laguna Canyon and Trabuco Canyon, clearing up debris and developing a game plan to restore some of the affected areas, spokesman Shannon Widor said.

The areas were “calm and peaceful” Friday morning, he said, “but looking at it, you can see an aftermath of just mud, rocks and tree branches. This is something our crews deal with regularly and they’re good at what they do.”

The biggest blow was along Laguna Canyon Road, where a 200-foot stretch of concrete center lining toppled over into the flood channel due to erosion, Widor said.

Public works officials set up a temporary fence to keep the public out for safety reasons, but removed the fencing Friday to remove debris and assess the damage and repairs needed, Widor said.

“They’ll come up with an engineering game plan over the next couple days,” Widor said. “We hope to start work (Friday), but we need to clear out the blockage and make the site safe for the public.”

Laguna Canyon Road was temporarily closed down during the storm but was reopened Friday, Sgt. Jim Cota of the Laguna Beach Police Department said.

The powerful storm also left remnants on local beaches.

Jim Serpa, a longtime retired park ranger for Doheny State Beach, went down to check out the storm’s impact and came across an odd sight: 19 dead octopus washed up on shore.

“They weren’t tiny little things, they were big,” he said, noting some were 18-inches long.

He also counted about 10 sea hares washed up dead on shore.

Serpa, a ranger at Doheny for decades, said it’s not the worst he’s ever seen after the storm, but “it’s up there.”

“There’s full-on trees and palm trees laying on the beach,” he said, noting other odd items like suitcases among the debris. Another sad sight were little Styrofoam pellets that coated the stretch of sand.

In north San Clemente, a section of Pacific Coast Highway remained closed after a landslide from a tall bluff dumped dirt toward the street, causing the cement sidewalk to break into pieces and push toward the highway.

The sight was enough to stop bicyclist Chip Hoover, among others walking and cycling on the other side of the street, to snap photos of the destruction.

“It’s kind of problematic,” the Dana Point resident said.

The storms, with sediment rushing down rivers toward the coast, might bring a relief to sand-depleted beaches, with already some sand piling up and forming new sections of beach at river mouths like the San Juan Creek in Dana Point.

But with the sand flow also comes the unwelcome sight of trash that have come down waterways and landed on the sand.

Several beach clean-ups will take place Saturday morning, including a gathering at Rosie’s Beach in Long Beach and 1st street in Seal Beach, where debris from dozens of inland cities ends up on the beach via the San Gabriel River.

A cleanup will also happen at Main Beach in Laguna, as well as the San Juan Creek in Dana Point at Doheny State Beach. The Surfrider Foundation will hold a beach cleanup at the San Clemente Pier at 9 a.m. Saturday.

“I’m a little sad today,” said Justin Rudd, founder of the non-profit that meets at Rosie’s Beach at Belmont Shores in a video posted Friday on social media from the beach. “There’s a lot of trash.”

He estimated 90 percent of the trash came down storm drains that flush into the San Gabriel River.

“It washes up on our shores and we are tasked with cleaning it up. We need your help,” he pleaded. “We’re going to make Long Beach clean and safe for the animals and people who live here.

Further inland, Trabuco Canyon Road remained closed between Plano Trabuco Road and Trabuco Creek Road, though Widor said crews hoped to have that stretch reopened by Friday afternoon after checking the road’s structural integrity.

Erosion and ruts will leave Trabuco Creek Road, which leads up to Holy Jim Canyon, closed for several days while crews perform light grading, Widor said.

#TrabucoCanyon Rd at Trabuco Creek still closed at this time as crews clear roadway & blockage of water flow at bridge. Aiming to re-open later today once deemed safe. @KFIAM640 @KNX1070 @ocregister @CBSLA @KTLA @OCFA_PIO @OCSheriff @ABC7 @KPCC @NBCLA @FOXLA pic.twitter.com/MhCa52Oo2t

— OC Public Works (@OCpublicworks) February 15, 2019

While Thursday’s storms sent down more debris and mud flows through Trabuco Canyon, Widor said most of the debris from the Holy Jim burn scar came down with the last round of heavy rain after which crews cleared 200 tons of debris on the bridge.

Thes storm brought down small boulders, which made booming sounds as they crashed into the side walls of the bridge, Widor said.  Crews also saw a number of logs and parkland trees, he said.

“It’s just a testament of Mother Nature’s power and another reason we don’t want people in creeks during rainstorms,” he said.