The first happened I believe in the mid 80s.
My wild life preserve was located in the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains in Cold Canyon. We had are own micro climate there. The rainfall at that time in LA was approximately 16 to 17 inches for the year. Cold canyon and my preserve received twice that amount.
One year we received 58 inches of rain. I did keep a careful journal on temperature and rainfall, since being this fair south sometimes proved to be a problem particularly when early rain came the grapes were not quite ripe. We were able to “dodge this bullet”, but the next one we could not.
Late one evening, when the ground was oversaturated with water, and we had received 6 inches of rain in 3 hours, we heard a huge rumble that lasted for 40 seconds. We thought this may have been an earthquake however we heard crashing sounds also. It was too dark to see anything.
The following morning we saw what had happened. The entire face of a huge sandstone rock probably 100 feet high and 150 feet wide had sheared off the mountain and took out stakes, vines and fencing in my Johanesberg Reisling vineyard. What a disappointing mess. These grapes were part of the profits to support my wildlife preserve which hopefully would still survive since I was the sole support.
It was winter time and impossible to more much but to survey the damage.
That Spring, the boys and I reconstructed the fencing etc…
I had used lady bugs and praying mantis to handle the hurtful insects, and the great thing about the rock slide was that was doing my repair work I experienced a lady bug hatch. The sky filled up with thousands of lady bugs to where they blocked out the sun. One of Mother Nature’s wonderful gifts to see.
Had the rock not fallen into the vineyard, I probably would have not experienced this. So guess something good came out of this natural disaster, and it gave me a sign of hope that just maybe I was doing something right.
The second natural disaster we experienced, was one of the several Malibu fires that came into Cold Canyon. I believe this was the mid 90s, but I will check with the fire department and try to be more accurate about the date.
My wife and I decided to do some additions and reface the entire outside of the house. Originally when I built the house my friends and I did the grading and ground work. The house was a one and one half modular kit that the company sold to me for $37,000. They had the house up in 7 days. Lots of prefab construction. It was turn key meaning the house had been rough plumbed, rough electrical, insulation and dry walled. We did all the finish electrical, plumbing, wood floors, cabinets, granite counters and tiles. I had no money and this was the only way I could afford a home for my family.
So now the house has had all the siding removed and construction started when here comes the fire.
I was at work and my son called me to get home that fire was almost at the wide open house. I tried to race home but could not get past the traffic jam two miles away while the parents were totally panicked, try to get their kids out of Meadow Oaks and safely home.
I did not know whether to park my car at the food mall in a huge parking lot, and head up the hills, past the road blocks to get home and protect the house and whatever family was there. I did have on employee to help me with the vineyards and I was hoping he was still there but did not know. As I parked my car, a friend of my son, Jeff Edwards pulled up and said can I help? I said you bet. Jeff said he knew some fire trails we could travel on and could come in through a gate that was usually not locked.
I jumped on the back of his motor cycle and headed out. By this time, the fire and smoke were so huge that it looked like the entire world was on fire. Up the fire trails and down the fire trails and through the gate and back on the trails which ended on my dirt road called Bob Batchelor road name for a gentleman that lived there many years. His nephew and wife were our neighbors but a distance away. Near the entrance to farm, we met a fire truck with the chief on board. I can remember him saying, “you men are not dressed to fight fire”. I reassured him that we would put on fire retardant clothes and would “flake out” 400 feet of fire hose and get the hose hooked up. When I got home Anne had the car and dog and cockatoo packed and ready to go.
Channel 2 news was on the veranda filming and interviewing Anne after they had helped her pack.
Join us in the next post for the rest of the story…
Yours in Health
Dr. Al Plechner DVM
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