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After a week of one-and -off rain, some Southern California neighborhoods had to mop up the mess after weather-related problems caused damage. Woodland Hills A woman said she woke up to the sound of her driveway fence collapsing into her neighbor’s backyard. Iana Lebovici said her neighbor’s tree fell over, dragging down her fence and some power lines along with it. “It’s pretty shocking. It looks like the ground underneath was completely overtaken by the tree,” Lebovici said. The LADWP responded and lifted the power lines but recommended they no longer drive on their driveway. Altadena The rain caused mud overflow in parts of Altadena, including a channel off Loma Alta Drive. But cars were still able to drive through the region without any significant damage, officials said. K-rails that have been in place since February appeared to have moved water away from homes and held back mud. One positive side, according to Altadena neighbors, is grass and flowers are growing again on land that was left barren after the Eaton Fire. Huntington Beach The recent storms caused serious flooding in a Huntington Beach neighborhood, turning a park with a pond into a lake and trapping dozens of neighbors inside their homes. The city has been using mobile pumps to remove flood water that inundated the Golden Park West neighborhood. “We are being drowned by this water,” Jeanette, who is forced to stay at her home, said as her property and other houses were blocked by water. NBC Los Angeles reached out to the city of Huntington Beach to see how long it would take for the flood water to be pumped out of the neighborhood. The garage of a Palms apartment building was flooding, causing water damage to most of the cars. Palms People living in an apartment building woke up to find their underground parking garage had flooded. “Unfortunately for me, I just got a new car like a week ago, literally a week ago. And that’s why I parked them all inside,” one tenant said, adding that nearly every car in the garage suffered water damage. Tarzana A geyser towered into the air in Tarzana after a car crash into a fire hydrant, causing severe damage to a gas station and flooding Ventura Boulevard. Video from the scene showed the incident caused the structural collapse of the Chevron gas station’s awning. Winnetka A driver was killed after a tree crashed into two cars in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood. Officials said the incident happened after 3:30 p.m. on Mason Avenue between Saticoy Street and Sherman Way. The unidentified driver inside a white SUV was declared at the scene, officials said. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

After new Los Angeles Fire Chief Jaime Moore told NBC Los Angeles exclusively that schools should allow students to learn from home when there’s a higher risk of wildfires, some parents have reacted positively to the proposal, saying having “red flag days” makes sense for Southern California as East Coast regions have snow days. While attending a town hall in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood Thursday, Chief Moore told NBC Los Angeles that he’s going to ask the Los Angeles Unified School District to consider allowing students to study remotely on days with high fire danger. In case of a disastrous wildfire such as the January wildfires, picking up students from schools that are located on narrow streets on top of steep hills, including Valley View Elementary School in Hollywood Hills, would be a nightmare for parents and families. If a fire starts when school is in session, parents and buses would rush to get the children while homeowners scramble to leave, as fire trucks try to make their way up the hills. “The idea of removing the life hazard, because of high temperatures, windy conditions and low relative humidity is a concern,” Moore said. “Why shouldn’t we think about removing the children from school and allowing them to study from home?” An LAUSD spokesperson told NBCLA that the district looks forward to collaborating with the new chief, saying it takes seriously the “safety of (its) students and employees.” “(The LAUSD relies) heavily on the information we receive from our local governmental partners about weather conditions and related warnings when making school closure decisions,” the district said. Some parents NBCLA spoke with Friday afternoon reacted positively to the outside-the-box idea. “I think it would be a great move for LA Unified,” said Geneva Garcia, whose child attends Valley View Elementary School, which is surrounded by trees and brush on a dead-end street. “Being affected by the Sunset Fire, it would have been comforting to have our kids home with us.” Garcia added that it would be beneficial for all different agencies to put their heads together to come up with ideas that can protect children and families. “We can’t control a lot of emergencies in Los Angeles, but being able to have our kids home and be safe, and know that we can monitor their health and control the air they’re breathing – it would be good for everybody,” the concerned parents said. A Hollywood Hills neighbor said she supports the proposal, too, saying “it makes sense.” “It’s a very narrow street, so I would appreciate it if the fire truck could come up here,” said Sophie Wang, who lives next to the elementary school. “During a school day, maybe it would be a little bit challenging because fire trucks would be hard to get uphill.” California Wildfires Jan 25 As schools in LA reopen, parents worry about harmful ash from wildfires Education Aug 13 Palisades High School students return to old Sears Building for new school year Chief Moore said he will propose the idea to the school board, but it was not immediately clear how last-minute childcare issues and free school meals would be affected on the proposed red flag days. LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin said the board will consider the idea once officially proposed to the board, adding that schools in his Westside district closed preemptively during the Palisades Fire. LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho’s office as well as other LAUSD Board members did not respond to NBCLA’s request for comment. This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Hours after announcing his decision to run for California governor, Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell visited Altadena Friday to visit neighborhoods ravaged by the Eaton Fire and speak with the wildfire survivors and first responders. The longtime congressman for the 14th district, which includes Alameda County, held the first news conference since he appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to announce his candidacy Thursday night. After touring the Altadena area and speaking with community members, Swalwell said he’s committed to supporting the Southern California community’s economic recovery. “My heart beats with Altadena, and I will be a governor that always fights for Altadena,” he said. Members of the Altadena Town Council said they hoped Friday’s tour has given Swalwell “renewed hope about that’s going on in Altadena.” “Even though the most visible fire debris is now gone, the physical landscape tells our story: the scale of loss, the pace of recovery and the long road still ahead for so many Altadenans, ” said Victoria Knapp, chair of the Altadena Town Council, said. No community group or members endorsed Swalwell during the news conference. Swalwell, who has been a U.S. representative for over a decade after serving as a deputy district attorney and city councilmember in California’s East Bay, will be running against other high-profile candidates, including Rep. Katie Porter, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and activist billionaire Tom Steyer. Former LA mayoral candidate and real estate developer Rick Caruso was also rumored to be considering a gubernatorial run. Swalwell has been one of the Democrats who have been targeted by President Trump and his allies as the congressman has fervently criticized the administration. Most recently, during a September hearing on the grand jury files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, he publicly clashed with FBI Director Kash Patel. Swalwell is also being investigated by the Trump administration for possible mortgage fraud. In 2021, Trump and his allies claimed Swalwell had ties to a suspected Chinese spy and had been compromised by a foreign intelligence agency. Swalwell denied those claims and a House Ethics Committee probe ended in 2023 with no finding of wrongdoing. California Nov 20 Gloves are off in CA governor's race. Villaraigosa goes after Becerra in new video California Nov 19 Tom Steyer is running for California governor as a populist billionaire This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser.

Prosecutors asked Friday for manslaughter charges brought against two Torrance police officers for the 2018 on-duty fatal shooting of Christopher Deandre Mitchell to be dismissed, after the LA County District Attorney’s Office told a judge the evidence in the case does not meet the legal burden of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” Officer Matthew Concannon and former officer Anthony Chavez were indicted in 2023 under the tenure of former District Attorney George Gascón, who had campaigned for office with the promise of reopening and potentially prosecuting this case, which a new analysis under DA Nathan Hochman’s office said could play into the defense should the two face trial. Mitchell was shot to death on Dec. 9, 2018, after Concannon and Chavez spotted a possible stolen car in the parking lot of a grocery store, approached the driver, and said they saw the sawed-off butt stock of a rifle or shotgun between the driver’s legs. Body worn video cameras were recording as both officers fired into the car. Mitchell was killed, and the weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that resembled a firearm. In October 2019, the shooting was reviewed by the District Attorney’s Office, then under former DA Jackie Lacey, and the office concluded the shooting was lawful and reasonable. After Gascón was elected in 2020, he hired former federal prosecutor Lawrence Middleton as a special prosecutor to review police shooting cases, and Middleton obtained the indictment against the officers for voluntary manslaughter. Crime and Courts Aug 30, 2024 Manslaughter case against Torrance Police officers will proceed to trial Torrance Apr 17, 2023 Torrance Police Officers Plead Not Guilty to Charges From On-Duty Killing The motion to dismiss the charges included new analysis of the case completed by Michael Gennaco, the special prosecutor hired by Hochman to replace Middleton on police shooting reviews. “After an extensive analysis, we determine no, we cannot prove this beyond a reasonable doubt,” Hochman said. His 26-page review suggested that there might have been a different path to prosecute the shooting under the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, but for unknown reasons, Middleton didn’t present the case to a grand jury within the three-year statute of limitations for that crime. Gennaco also noted that Middleton didn’t show grand jurors all of the video of the shooting, and didn’t properly instruct grand jurors on the legal elements required to prove a voluntary manslaughter case. While the charges were pending defense lawyers for the officers challenged Middleton’s use of the officers’ pre-shooting conduct in assembling the argument that the shooting was unjust, which, after a 2020 change in California law, was allowed to be more fully considered in police shooting evaluations. Gennaco said one pending appeal of that decision could also lead to the charges being dismissed. The Mitchell shooting took on greater public interest after it was revealed in 2021 that numerous Torrance Police officers were sending each other racist text messages, including Chavez and Concannon to varying degrees. Those messages were referenced by Middleton as potential evidence of racial bias, but Gennaco said it was far from certain whether they could be admissible in a prosecution, as it was difficult to clearly connect the text messages to the Mitchell case directly. Hochman said he spoke with Mitchell’s mother, adding that he understood it was a “very difficult decision” for the mother to hear. NBC Los Angeles has reached out to the defense attorneys for Concannon and Chavez.