Alluvial Fan Flooding: The Montrose, California, Flood of 1934

During the last day of 1933 and the first day of 1934 Los Angeles County was struck by the greatest rainstorm of any 24-hour period in its history. The greater part of the damage done by the storm was concentrated in the communities of Montrose, La Crescenta, and Glendale, where a number of people lost their lives and several hundred houses and other property were partially or completely destroyed. The chief cause of this localization of the principal damage was a burnt-over watershed in the San Gabriel Mountains whose forest cover had been destroyed only a month before the storm and whose drainage passed directly through these communities. It is seldom that retribution for deforestation follows so swiftly and unmistakably.