Death toll at 17 after mudslides
DEVASTATION IN SANTA BARBARA: HOUSES GONE
Cars also washed away, roads closed, residents evacuated by helicopter.
Rescuers used dogs and helicopters to search for victims on Wednesday of powerful mudslides that left at least 17 people dead in a southern California community that is home to major celebrities, including Oprah Winfrey.
Heavy rains on Tuesday sent rivers of waist-high mud and debris flowing from the hills into Montecito and other towns in Santa Barbara County northwest of Los Angeles, which are still recovering from last month’s ferocious wildfires.
At least 28 people were injured, authorities said, while 30 000 were subject to mandatory evacuation orders. The US Coast Guard released footage of a couple, their two children and two dogs being plucked from their roof and hoisted up to a helicopter in baskets.
Bulldozers were clearing the roads of tons of sticky brown mud in Montecito and other towns as utility workers restored downed power lines.
Talk show host Oprah Winfrey posted a video of herself outside her Montecito mansion wading in near-knee deep mud.
In some neighbourhoods still bearing the scars of the Thomas Fire, houses were completely destroyed. Melissa Ausanka-Crues, 29, said: “My family has had a house here for 30 years and never seen something like this.”
Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, another Montecito resident affected by the storm, put a picture on Twitter of herself standing in mud.
Tom Oschner, who was checking on his sister’s house, said the destruction was devastating. “It’s total. There’s mud inside all the way in. Some of the structure was swept away,” he said, adding the building was filled with debris and trees. Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told CBS’s This Morning that “you couldn’t help but be amazed at the intensity of the storm and the result of the mudslide and the water that cascaded down the hills.” Roads were clogged throughout the region with mudflows shutting down more than 50km of the 101 Freeway and knocking several homes from their foundations. Much of the affected area is land scorched by the massive Thomas fire several weeks ago.
In a part of the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank a mudslide pulled cars out of driveways and carried them downstream. –
There’s mud inside the house all the way in.