“No Help for Residents of Rodeo Grounds”
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| Residents use makeshift bridge over fast creek. |
On a dirt road where flood had struck only a day before, a barefoot, shirtless boy tossed lighted matches toward a trash can. Two goats squatted a few yards away, indifferent to the scene. A telephone pole—split in halves and silt buried—cast a skinny shadow over a cluster of awkwardly buried houses.
“Damned junk won’t light,” the boy said, slowly shambling toward a group of men and women digging a house out of the mud.
“Did you burn it?” someone inquired about the trash.
“No... it’s too wet,” the boy replied. He shrugged.
“Well, then help us shovel,” a woman commanded.
Across the creek, goats, horses, and fowl wandered, searching for scraps of food left by the current now reduced to near-normal flow. Automobiles were partially or totally swamped throughout this area of small stucco homes and green, grassy fields. A party of men hurriedly improvised a shaky footbridge across a clay-colored stream, so that contact with the outside world might be resumed.
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| Goats show unconcern at human woes of buried cars, wrecked yards, and ravished shrubbery as they rest nonchalantly amid the debris at left. |
Most of the houses, were wholly destroyed: no help is in sight for most of 70 residents of Rodeo Grounds near Santa Monica, one week after floods and rain battered Southern California.
Help arrived without hesitation to most local communities, but while county and Federal aid is being provided to restore damaged areas, citizens in Rodeo Grounds remain unaided due to a jurisdictional bout between county and owners of the property, the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
“Our case is different from the rest of the other damaged cities,” explains Eric Herrmann, 21, Rodeo Grounds resident for 12 years. “After we called all the emergency centers we found that we are not qualified to receive any of these funds because we are not part of the city. The county can’t help us because the land is privately owned, so all the clean up work has to be done by us, the residents.”
The Rodeo Grounds community has been without water or power and no aid had been forthcoming.
The Los Angeles Athletic Club maintains a “no comment” policy because, according to Ned Weiner, spokesman for the club, “we have failed to get into the area and, until we do, we cannot make a statement about damage, assessments, or help we can give these people.”
According to Herrmann—he was in Santa Monica last Sunday when the flood struck—“My mother called me and told me not to come back. That was before the phone lines were downed. My mother went up to the second story when the silt rushed in the first level of our house.
“I came back to Rodeo Grounds with the Sheriff’s Rescue Unit and everything was full of silt and mud. My car, a small bus, was washed away to the sea by the current.”
Many of the other residents suffered the same fate with their transportation. Those vehicles that were not washed to sea were battered or buried by the flood.
The Herrmanns are ready to give up on Rodeo Grounds. “We had plans to move anyway before ‘the next flood’ came, because we had been flooded before, but never this bad,” said Herrmann. “Now we won’t even bother with the place.”
Only two houses remained untouched during the storm and most of the people voiced their willingness to stay regardless of floods or storms.
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| Ceremonial candle stick frames the view from the living room of the home of Mrs. Margaret Cohen, whose household goods are stacked in the battered front yard. |
According to Mrs. Lester (Margaret.) Cohen, whose house was buried in four feet
of silt, “the neighborhood and the atmosphere in Rodeo Grounds are so warm” that she doesn’t plan to leave.
Her house was completely destroyed and she had a “99 percent loss” on the property. “The only thing left is the house itself,” she said, “but I will try to recover as soon as possible. No, I don’t plan to move. I like it here.
“It used to be such a pretty neighborhood. There were trees all around and the small stream that gurgled when it rained. Then, too, was the ocean, only a few minutes away. But look at it now,” Mrs. Cohen continued.
The Lane family, a few doors away from the Cohens were caught by the flood in complete surprise.
I was in bed when I felt the water running in my room,” said Walter Lane, 16. “When I got out of the house, there were about three or four feet of mud in the room. We have been flooded before but it has never reached this limit.
“When the rescue people came, we were all huddled on the hill behind our house. They asked us to leave, but we won’t leave our house just like that.”
Mrs. Elaine Lane nodded agreement.
“In about a week, we’ll have all the mud cleared and everything back in shape,” she added.
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| Walter Lane, 16, surveys the remains of his living room. |
Not all the residents in Rodeo Grounds are as optimistic, however. The Lindquists, a family who has owned a winter home in Rodeo Grounds for 28 years, do not know yet what they will do.
“My house is totaled,” said Carl Lindquist. “Our daughter, Ingrid, was staying there at the time and you ought to see the mess. I don’t know what.to do.”
His daughter confesses she was more worried about two horses owned by the Lindquists than about the house. “I had to dig one horse out of the silt,” she said. “He was buried to the shoulders in it.”
Most of the residents are glad that the only fatality during the time of rampaging waters was one cat. “We don’t know if he’s had it yet,” someone added. “He might come up somewhere.”
Meanwhile, as work goes on in Rodeo Grounds, the county and the Athletic Club have not done a thing to help the people.
Investigation shows that the Athletic Club’s “no comment” policy, has kept some branches of county government practically unaware of the situation in Rodeo Grounds.
A spokesman for the County Engineers claims that they are unable to build a road to the community unless life is threatened by the loss of the road.
The Flood Control District admits it uses the Topanga Creek, which crosses the property, for control uses upstream, but cannot take responsibility for bringing repairs to the damaged bridge and road which linked Rodeo Grounds to Topanga Canyon Road.
Trash and garbage is beginning to pile up and trucks cannot get in the area.
County Health Officials say that all they can do is advise the people of the health hazards.
Without electricity or water the people have informally taken the attitude of helping everybody else.
The words of a resident sum up the situation: “We have not lost the spirit, as we have property.”
