Debris flow on December 13th near Boulder Creek CA

A handful of clips from our security cameras (and a brief handheld footage from a safe distance, before I evacuated moments later) on the morning of December 13th, 2021. Our house is situated less than a quarter mile from the burn scar of the CZU Fire which likely contributed to this small but intense flow of debris. Our landscape was heavily rearranged, with a much greater elevation drop than the creek had prior. #CZUFire #CaWx

[@hpengineprep]

Everyone in SLV knows you're supposed to hang a kayak off your back deck and when it gets horizontal its time to get in it and leave.

[@livemusicsantacruz]

This is truly eye-opening footage. The sheer volume of water swelling the local waterways was mind-boggling in itself. Fascinating watching the flow change with the debris washing down...no small matter. Thank you for sharing. Glad no one was hurt.

[@gailmahood9778]

Hi Owen, I want to second the appreciation from the County for posting this video of the debris flow(s) that passed by your home on Foreman Creek. It could save lives. As a retired geology professor from Stanford University, who has studied and lectured about debris flows, I would like to suggest that you change the title on the video from "mud slide" to "debris flows". What you are showing is a series of debris flows. A mud slide is something different: rain-soaked soil and rock that breaks away on a steep slope, and slides down the slope (e.g., what happened in Love Creek in the great storm of 1982). By the way, your observation about the creek elevation is a classic effect of debris flows: "armed" with rocks, sand, logs and other debris, debris flows moving at high velocities in steep canyons can erode their channels making them deeper. Where debris flows slow down on flat ground, they deposit (e.g., what happened at Montecito in 2018 following the Thomas Fire).

[@ophiuchus8105]

Thanks for the info! Updated the title.

[@gailmahood9778]

@@ophiuchus8105 Great! Thank you.

[@hahaha9076]

In the Australian landscape these are commonly called gully rakes. This kind of flooding is particularly dangerous to new comers. I'm glad you were safe.

[@robertgarland805]

I lived in Boulder Creek and moved into Santa Cruz a few weeks before the flood. A beautiful place to live.

[@julielumine553]

Yeah, Gail… yes, & no. Debris w/ that amount of force & high concentration of ash ( color!) are truly a mixture. Its going too fast & forcefully to deposit here, will & oceanpoint. Degrees must be applied w/ practicum-lots of it

[@blk77sunshn]

Thank you for making this video. I'm glad that you are OK (from what I gathered from other comments). That was a terrifying show of nature's force on display. We can all learn lessons from this and make our homes and ourselves safer during events like this. Keep safe, and I hope you can rebuild swiftly. God bless.

[@geoffreyrussell660]

Wow. So frightening - and so very glad for you to not have lost your deck...or worse. We owned in Riverside Grove '84-'13. Many parts of the SC Mountains we miss, but not this.... Again - glad your place survived. - Geoff.

[@melodiefrances3898]

The speed is terrifying.

[@ceriedwards991]

Good to know where water flows or where floodplains are before build a house in rural land. Hope all are safe

[@fatchoy8]

Oh dear, glad to hear you're alright from it. Thank you for sharing

[@bexxy2407]

wow that looked absolutely terrifying! I am pleased to know you and your loved one are safe ❤

[@BarbaraRademacher]

Of the debris flow videos I have watched, this one is the most terrifying so far.

[@quercophilia]

Thank you so much for posting this on youtube! You may save some lives with this.

[@johnmudd6453]

It takes a lot to impress me ,but my god that was terrifying ,so close to your home ! I thought you were going to lose you deck

[@bluesky.believeitornot.1882]

Wow..Amazing.Look at that tree down at the bottom right of the screen.standing there steadily with all the pressure it's receiving.

[@lisahammer7078]

I'm glad you're okay!

[@skinnydipper3493]

That was pretty full on..!! You wouldn't want it to be any worse than that..!

[@Jack_rabbits_sage_brush]

The power of water. It can move mountains...........literately!

[@wheels-n-tires1846]

Just wow!!! Pretty scary... But, looks like lots of firewood delivered for free...!!😂

[@TheWestlandgirl]

Sound would've been even more mindblowing

[@countyofsantacruzca]

Glad to know you and your family are safe. May we use this for educational purposes the next time we have a big storm coming our way? It really will help enlighten people about the dangers from debris flow. More than happy to credit you.

[@ophiuchus8105]

Yes, that would be just fine. You can share this, or reach out to me “Owen Imholte” for a copy (pretty sure you have my info ;) but if not I’m easy enough to find)

[@countyofsantacruzca]

@@ophiuchus8105 Thank you Owen.

[@timnelson6055]

@@juliewuest1437 "it stayed within the natural banks of the creek". Not so much, to my eye, even if not catastrophic.

[@dakmycat3688]

Not bad. Mother Nature doing what she does best.

[@sarajanesmith3892]

I seen raging water but that beats it all!!

[@skeets6060]

Thats a lot of water,, and a lot of fire wood

[@bossdillman7011]

Thats frightening. Used to fedex around BC for years in many storms. Never saw debri flows like this. Very eye opening

[@felixcat9318]

Having not been too badly effected by the magnitude of that destructive, fast moving debris field, I would be concerned for the foundations of the building, that the ground that they're embedded into wasn't eroded away by the water or debris! By any definition, that was a lethal flow, and anything downhill in its path wasn't going to fare well once it arrived. The potential for future events, and their potential threat to the building would give cause for concern. It seems that escaping that torrent was simply a matter of good fortune, long may it hold!

[@karenimholte5764]

Whoa! That’s crazy.

[@crazyprepper5400]

That's where the gold is

[@Don.Challenger]

Yes, no doubt placer deposits being made along there; but, in this case, mostly placer deposits of lumber and gravel - might be worth panning a few spots and see if anything glints back at you.

[@ron6575]

I used to live in Scotts Valley off of Glenwood Drive and every year someone along that stretch would have some crazy land slide.

[@davegutenech7188]

I used to live in Healdsburg CA. Seems when it would rain hard the rivet going out to Gernville would flood. We used to help out the people and business.

[@charleslloyd4253]

The current Rocky mountains are the third set of mountains in the area. The first two eroded to form the flat lands surrounding the current mountains. And the current mountains will erode to do the same. Nothing is permanent on earth. Not even mountain ranges.

[@barbrn]

I didn't know that!

[@jolookstothestars6358]

Crazy!

[@noworriesmate5903]

Well that's not good. Now there is a lot of work along the whole river to do.

[@Snickerszn]

This is one of the best flash flood videos I have ever seen awesome. Those trees turning sideways could of started a major damn and couldn’t gotten way worse.

[@lindapindabelinda3570]

Yikes. For anyone else who may be anticipating a similar debris flow, go out now and clear a path for the water so that branches and limbs don’t get caught and create dams. Like cut down all the trees in the way. They’re going to go down anyway.

[@nannettehuffman8397]

Cutting down vegetation along the bank will just cause more erosion. How about building your house further away from the creek???

[@nannettehuffman8397]

You are NOT going to stop this.

[@Don.Challenger]

Ophiuchus, presumably you became a bit worried when that serpent turned unruly. Very interesting video for a lazy Monday morning and lucky maybe that that wasn't a Friday. I'm a fan of the Illgraben valley debris flows shown on Pierre-Emmanuel Zufferey's KZbin channel. A significant difference with his videos is that yours was viewed more or less from the vantage of your breakfast table on that veranda and at just arm's length (so much more tangible), while his camera work is from a bridge overlooking a substantial infrastructure of engineered concrete structures attempting to wrestle those flows somewhat safely from their source on the flanks of the Illhorn mountain into the river Rhone.

[@GMitchell5150]

I bet the sound was awesome.

[@dgatsf]

Boulder creek was my go to place to get out of the city and into nature. It totally breaks my heart that big basin state park in Boulder Creek was so devastated by the 2020 fires. I can’t even bring myself to go there because I know the park will look like Yellowstone, burned out dead place

[@ophiuchus8105]

I got to drive through recently, it is quite a drastic change, but there is still a lot of green and regrowth happening. You should come visit when you feel able to.

[@DR_SOLO]

that log that lodged itself at 25 seconds into the video between the tree and the earth I do believe is the miracle that saved so much stuff from being shot towards the house so far I'm at 3 minutes and 26 seconds so I don't know if it's going to hold or not but let's see

[@ophiuchus8105]

Still holding til this day... but we might remove it to get the flow going again (actually the county said they would but nobody has yet).

[@dingdong2229]

A few of those logs look like PGE clearcut.

[@smhs1262]

that's what a stairway looks like? wow!

[@robertlandry5676]

2:17 Was this in the Sales Brochure? Creekside😂

[@johnxgalt8312]

That was enough timber to build another ark.

[@joejoejoejoejoejoej]

Good job that stair and deck survived!!! Big expense avoided … Did you capture the firewood !! Worth it with the way energy prices are going !!!!

[@williambrandondavis6897]

Keep your fingers crossed you don’t get a bigger one. It wouldn’t take much more to take your house out. If that water gets under your foundation it will be bad. Make an emergency escape plan!

[@Bloomcycle]

That one log that jams up the stream

[@deadpoolstrikesagain3914]

Always build a few km away from any old stream.. because if it rains this can happen. Hope ur all safe

[@marcusthemagnificent9902]

That’s not a mudslide. That’s a flood, plain & simple. Granted a whole lot of debris came down when the water rose, but it was still water, albeit very silt-laden water. And it did not look like the first time that this has happened. Those shots of the path showed where high water had eroded away the bank of the creek previously. Lovely home and property, BTW. Very nice indeed.

[@ophiuchus8105]

Agreed, wasn’t really sure what to call it; judging by what is upstream from this there might have been a mudslide that preceded this uphill (and to be fair, despite the intensity, I think this was kinda “small” and we were very lucky). Not sure which part you’re referring to, but the water hasn’t been nearly this high in the last few years/no flooding we’re aware of (short of a few decades ago).

[@normanjohn9697]

In the African country which is the furthest one South, no permanent structures are to be built within 50 metres of the high water mark of any body of water. One would think that the USA would have even stricter building regulations.

[@petergustafson7446]

Is this at the bottom of redwood dr at 236? I lived there back in the early 90’s with Alan snd Jenny Cunningham. She was Boucher back then. I think that they’ve done a lot of work on it. It looks different today. My parents still live up past there above the golf course.

[@ophiuchus8105]

Yep!

[@billhause]

Holy Crap!

[@scottcrowley4745]

What camera system is that?? And yeah I live on the San Lorenzo and it got scary in that storm too! These burn scars make already scary winters around here wayyyy scary

[@ophiuchus8105]

It’s a Lorex NVR with various Lorex PoE 4K cameras (so the crop in should still be 1080p, though the fast moving water really does a number on video compression).

[@thehouseofstark]

Hey Honey, I think we may have to find a way to gtfo. Seems the forest is flooding again

[@oldscoolcooldiecast1879]

Who ever built all that built it well that's for sure

[@gyprocman8163]

🇨🇦 If you got another flow like that. Post before and after shots.

[@jerrywhalen2100]

Have you ever seen that happen before in that Creek amazing that it was able to handle it

[@ophiuchus8105]

No, prior to this it would sometimes gush higher during a strong rain, but the deepest it ever got was a couple feet (and was usually clear, or just a little bit muddy).

[@Snickerszn]

I bet it damned up somewhere and just let loose. Looked like those sideways trees across the creek against the living tree could of started a huge damn of debris. Your lucky it wasn’t worse.

[@peteswelding09]

Of all the places that you could have built that house,, it looks like you GOT THAT PART RIGHT,, by about 2 INCHES.

[@saudagartebu8846]

Oke semangat mantap sukses mampir 👍

[@cassadyvelasco2309]

May KSBW use your video as the county prepares for more rain this week? We'd be happy to credit your name over the video. Thanks for your consideration.

[@ophiuchus8105]

Sure, that’s just fine.

[@breakingtoast2255]

That one log is backing everything up bit like me after McDonald's

[@yehuditbrachabachmannbench9468]

Without a sound?

[@ophiuchus8105]

I also hate a video without a sound...but security cameras are what they are. I'll see about uploading my short phone clip with sound in a bit.

[@felixyusupov7299]

Mike Everman used to live on Madrone Drive a hundred feet or so from that exact spot. Anyone know Mike?

[@betsyo8330]

Where does all that lumber go?

[@ifeelbetterabouthis.louis3]

Awesome

[@dmmchugh3714]

What did all that look like at the bottom ? Was there a massive debris pile of trees, etc ? Or did this all eventually wash into some river ?

[@ophiuchus8105]

It turns out I have a video of that I got a hold of after the fact. It’s almost as impressive, will post it soon (and maybe do a follow up showing the change to our landscape).

[@ophiuchus8105]

But to answer your question, it miraculously went through a culvert and then fed into a bigger river (Boulder Creek and the San Lorenzo River)

[@simonartley1645]

Regarding homes,and it would apoly to many fast flowing streams ...dont build them near the river,however tempting...or even allowed.It only takes one major event...and rivers dont follow planning rules...

[@hansjohansson8053]

👍🇸🇪❤️.

[@markkryzler6982]

do you think there are also animals washed away from that flood?

[@brada4018]

Thats way too close!

[@user-bh7pb2ss5z]

看著那些木頭一直往下流 我會覺得很可惜

[@MonthlyFails]

Hello Acoustic Automation, is it possible to contact you regarding this video (i.e. via email)? We would be interested to discuss a license to use this video if this is generally possible to discuss? :) Cheers, Felix

[@58jennypenny]

Bit close for comfort ay...

[@leftymadrid]

Ok, that would make anyone bite their nails off!!!!!! Too close for comfort I would say!

[@gatorshd]

Holy S

[@juliof9670]

mayb is time to sell the jouse dont wait for the worst. be careful

[@beakytwitch7905]

It ain't drinking water.... D'ya think the name "Boulder Creek" might contain an implicit warning ?

[@vmatthews9437]

BELOW THE PROPERTY, OFF SEASON PLACE STRONG IRON BARRIERS ------ COULD HAVE COLLECTED VALUABLE WOOD, DRIED IN SUMMER, USED ! ROUGHLY EXPENSIVE, DESCRIBED ======== MATTS'

[@binaliaksunger7630]

❤️🌹❣️👍🙏💞💕👋👏

[@yopeepthisout]

FOR SALE: Quiet 4br, 2ba, 1900 sq ft house located in the woods with a peaceful creek running through the yard.

[@user-fd7ju5sb6b]

Americans crack me up, the places they build, and what they build out of.

[@chrisskinner6291]

Go figure the 13

[@Don.Challenger]

That year in December it was a Monday the 13th.

[@juliof9670]

guaoo. i would cut any tree in the way of this creek so nothing would get stock for next rain season

[@Devonellah]

This is why buying a house there is probably not a good idea... I was looking there and decided not to...

[@xadam2dudex]

This just shows why you don't build on the edge of a creek or river .. Water has a tendency to flow down these paths .. So flood waters will also flow in the same paths .. Too bad there's no sound

[@frankanddanasnyder3272]

Nice creek flood, but Not a debris flow....

[@barbrn]

What do you call all those logs?

[@charlesblack2523]

Too close for comfort

[@semsamatanovic5296]

ALLAHU AKBAR....LA IL LAHE IL ALLAHU!!!!!m

[@Tommes_Haeberle]

Stairway to hell

[@phoenixjim0527]

8:10 = the deck didn’t wash away. This video is disappointing. Next.

[@Don.Challenger]

Advice for your build: don't go with the low bid, interview your prospective general contractor longer with questions revealing their experience, expertise, quality and who they subcontract with - not if they take money under the table and evade the permitting process to lower prices even more. On buying: bring in a well known property and house inspector early on.

[@tessfitzgerald6455]

Not a debris flow? Hahahahaha, um, okaaaaaay. Let’s not show people actual footage of an actual minor debris flow cause, you know, them disaster experts got it all wrong-just verify it on Facebook 🤣 Stupid should be painful.

[@sharonmccorkell]

No need for being sarcastic and derogatory. That convinces no one.

[@tessfitzgerald6455]

One would hope with visual evidence, ‘convincing’ would be unnecessary.

[@mommakittyhiking]

@@tessfitzgerald6455 Exactly Tess. There were literally whole trees flying down the creek...

[@EasyModeFishing]

Definitely don’t build a house on a creek lol

[@edcarr9819]

Pres Trump was correct about maintenance on forest. If the debris was managed, this would not be a problem.

[@Berubium]

What? By raking the forest???

[@edcarr9819]

@@Berubium There are several thousand " undocumented workets" that could EARN their free quarters and welfare checks by " raking" the forests!

[@Berubium]

@@edcarr9819 sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.

[@Don.Challenger]

Then ex president Donald should be out there with his own shovel helping Smokey Bear not endlessly screwing peoples brains up.

[@nannettehuffman8397]

Why don’t you just build your house right on the creek? People complain or are scared about these floods, but yet build right on the creek. Than when the house gets swept away or damaged, the my insurance rates increase cause they have to pay for your desire to be that close to a creek/river. No sympathy here.

[@Don.Challenger]

There was a wild fire close by and higher up the watershed, that tends to change things for the future somewhat. As to building on or over the creek, the culvert of the road crossing down stream ended up fine, so well engineered you can.

[@oswaldoarango975]

bueno.el.incidente.pero.el. enfoque.que.el.bobo dela.camara hace.se.ve.que.no.tiene.ni.idea. de.como.se.hace.bien un.video. lastima.hubiera.sido.exelente video.se.lo.tiro.bobaso

[@karenimholte5764]

Whoa! That’s crazy.

[@brookeggleston9314]

Whoa; you spelled *whoa* correctly!!