A flood could come through and cut me off from the rest of town. Cutting through some of the waxy coating on the soil surface could help reduce runoff, Parsons said, but she said flood risk could remain high. That scenario would include a heavy thunderstorm very early on in the summer rainy season. The drier the waxy soil is, the more runoff will result. As things stand, the soil is very dry and dusty.
Some water seeps in, but much slips away like water off a duck's back.
Parsons said seeding grass on the burn sites could help but would be, again, just a way of reducing the magnitude of a potential disaster. U.S. Forest Service rehabilitation crews have ordered 750,000 pounds of grass seed to be spread across the hardest hit burn areas. Los Alamos will have to call on all of its creative thinking. But the Army Corps of Engineers is already thinking of other projects that could sluice water and mud away from town. The waxy, water-repellent soil from this forest fire is similar to the kind that has led to the infamous mudslides in Southern California.