Stars flee Hollywood homes in floods

Press, 23 February 1980, Page 9

Stars flee Hollywood homes in floods

NZPA-Reuter Los Angeles Storms backed up all the way to Japan were heading for the weary, sodden “tinsel town,” Los Angeles, yesterday threatening to send more million-dollar homes sliding down hillsides. ’* Tinsel town, the name 3 given to the city of film and Recording stars, has ’ a flood j'With'a difference — it is the ■jfi'ch, more than the poor, ! who are suffering. Film ' stars joined forces '“with lawyers and doctors ’trying to save their luxurious homes perched high on j'ffieT sides of rich canyon ijcreas, the worst hit by the •Southern ’ Californian floods •which have already claimed lives.

Olivia Newton-John, the ——

singer, has rounded Up her big collection of animals on her Malibu ranch. Barbra Streisand is directing earth-moving equipment to , build a dirt barricade round her home in Ramirez Canyon, and Ann Margret, the dancer, said' the driveway of her home had caved in under the floodwaters.

Dyan Cannon, the actress, former wife of Cary Grant, moved out of her Pacific Beach house into her home in Coldwater' Canyon, and was promptly flooded out. She has moved into a hotel. Julie Andrews had to leave her home by helicopter because roads . were blocked by mudslides. The deluge in the west also threatened to break a

dam in Idaho where about 20 families were evacuated. Some schools were closed in Arizona and residents of downtown San Diego in southern California were warned to prepare to evacuate.

Medical supplies and food have been airlifted to 200 families marooned since Sunday when the Margarita River swirled around the San Diego county community of De Luz. At least 30 people have died in California, Utah. Arizona, and Mexico since the storms began last week, and loss estimates now exceed $355 million. Four other people are still missing in deep snow in a northern California park.