Normandy Park resident Chris DeLaRosa says she ran for her life when a mudslide came pouring down her driveway on Jan. 7.

Her dog started acting strangely around 7 p.m. and DeLaRosa took him outside.

"I heard the ground shake and saw mud coming down my driveway and there were two waterfalls running down the side of my hill," said DeLaRosa. "I turned and ran for my life. When I looked back it had shot down towards my house. It was a few inches away from hitting my house."

The street grates near her home on Sixth Place South in Normandy Park get a lot of runoff and get filled with debris.

"That evening around 5 p.m., I checked them to make sure they were running since I've had previous mudslides," said DeLaRosa.

Two more mudslides were soon to follow and water started rising toward her back door.

"At that time I decided to pack up my two dogs and cat and climbed up to the top of the hill," added DeLaRosa.

Police and a Normandy Park city truck filled with shovels, rakes and sandbags were digging debris out of areas to get the water to the grates farther up the hill. DeLaRosa said she helped out with their efforts.

"The water never really goes into the grate, it just comes down the side of my hill," said DeLaRosa.

After helping clear out the grates, DeLaRosa left for the weekend because she did not think the area was stable enough for her to stay in her home.

"If my car was parked by my house that night, my car would have been totaled and it would have been pushed up to my house. So I was lucky in that aspect," she said.

The fill that came into DeLaRosa's property was illegally dumped on Normandy Park property, according to DeLaRosa.

"We are looking into it," said Peter Landry, Normandy Park public works director. "There is ongoing fill in that area that was illegally placed there."

Landry said there has been an issue on their enforcement log for over a year to put a stop-work order in. He thought that had happened. He said the city does not have any specific information on who dumped the illegal fill.

"As the city did not place the fill, we do not take responsibility for that," he said. "The entire slide was the fill.

"Even though it is not our doing, we want to make sure and look at what's proper for us to do," he added. "We are working with the homeowner and trying to get things in and out as quick as possible and are looking into enforcement action."

Normandy Park may redo the storm system because it is getting Des Moines water in it, said DeLaRosa.

"We are looking into the storm system in the area," confirmed Landry. "We had extraordinary flooding all over the state. In those kinds of situations we do the best we can.

"But there are certain things that are considered an act of God. And that rainfall event was in that kind of scope."

In the meantime, DeLaRosa said she is submitting a claim to the city.

Delarosa said the cost for repairs to her home and yard is an estimated $10,000.

The mud and water went almost to the Des Moines Marina, according to DeLaRosa.

"To top it off, my dog hurt his leg when walking around when we came home," she added.

Rebecca Livingston is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.