San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
‘God help us, we’re going to die’
Montecito residents knew how to evacuate from fires. Mudslides were an entirely different beast
By the end of December 2017, Montecito residents had learned how to evacuate — myself, my husband, Dave, and our two kids, Jack and Lauren, included. The Thomas Fire had ignited early that month in Santa Barbara County, and our town had been through three fire evacuations within a matter of weeks. We were well prepared if Mother Nature ever decided we needed to flee again.
Nine days into 2018, that’s exactly what we had to do — but not everyone would make it out.
In the early hours of Jan. 9, Dave and I awoke to heavy rain pounding our roof. We had heard some rains were predicted but this sound was torrential. Fear climbed up my throat. With barren mountains above us from the recent fires, there was no foliage to secure the mud ash layer coating the ground — or the massive boulders hanging precariously on the hillside.
Dave jumped out of bed and went to check the house. I then heard a crashing sound and immediately knew what it was: boulders were moving and slamming into each other as they bounced down the mountain to the creek across the lane.
“Dave,” I yelled to my husband now in the garage. “Something really wrong is happening!”
Dave came back inside and headed toward the front door. As he paused to pull his red rain jacket’s hood over his head, we heard and felt an explosion. Then all the lights went out. With only the faint yellow glow from the sky seeping through the windows, we could see a faint outline of the room and furniture.
“Guys, out now!” Dave yelled to us frantically.
I raced to the kitchen to grab our dog Chester’s leash. Lauren and Jack were still in their rooms getting dressed.
I saw Dave standing inside the front door, again yelling loudly, “Out now!”
He opened the door and was about to step outside when unexpectedly he slammed it shut.
“Back door now!” he screamed without explanation.
I raced toward the back door, dog leash in hand, purse hanging on my forearm, holding my phone.
Chester was at my feet, lying down on the living room floor.
In complete terror, Dave ran past me and bounded out the back door toward the pool.
As he ran, he screamed, “Kim, get out now! Kim, come on, get out, get out!”
Before I grabbed the back door, I frantically yelled for the kids. “Jack, Lauren! Now! Get out!”
Just then, water started rushing into the house.
Within seconds, the thick angry flow raced toward me in the back of the living room. I later learned that it was moving at 30 miles per hour.
Dark slime began to seep in under our doors. The muddy water came up through the bottom of our front walls and front doors.
I looked down at Chester, still lying on the floor. I told him, “Let’s go!” But he tilted his head and looked up at me hauntingly as he lay on the carpet. Chester did not move. He seemed to know there was no escape.
I heard a horrifying, unfamiliar noise that sounded as if I were standing under the walkway of Niagara Falls. Like the roar of an oncoming train, mere inches away.
The vibration of massive boulders slamming against each other added to my terror as I realized the house was moving. I twisted so I could look at the front of the house and was shocked to see a wave of mud filling the room. In seconds, muddy water rushed from the front of the house toward me as I stood by the back door. The mud forcefully closed the glass door on my hand, which had been in the door jamb. The force was so strong, I couldn’t open the door. The increasing pressure on my hand was excruciating. I watched, horrified, as the mud, now over 3 feet high, blanketed everything. It completely covered and drowned Chester as I watched, helpless.
As the flow became thighhigh, my panic rose. I tried calling the kids again, but no one answered. When the mud reached my chest, I struggled to keep my footing. A dining room chair from the front of the house floated toward me.
“God help us!” I prayed. “Oh, my God, we’re going to die tonight!”
The odor of mud filled my nose. My ears rang with horrific, loud sounds. As I struggled to keep my footing, my purse fell off my arm. An emergency alert blasted from my phone as it fell into the water. The blast warned to “get to high ground.” It was too little, too late.
By then, the flow had immersed me up to my chest. My body started to spin. I struggled to pull my hand out of the door jamb.
On the other side of the glass door, I could see Dave urgently yelling.
“Kim, come on! Kim, get out!” “I can’t!” I screamed. “My hand is trapped in the door!”
Then, in a horrific instant, he was gone, washed away in a violent river of mud. He had no walls to protect him. The last words I heard Dave say to me before the mud took me under were him trying to save my life. I was now alone in hell. I feared for Dave and my kids, whom I could not see. The increasing pressure of the mud pushed heavily against the door,
trapping my hand. It felt like it was being crushed in two.
A stronger roaring torrent of water came, pushing me backward into the water. I was entirely submerged. As the house was torn apart, my hand finally came free.
But I knew I needed a miracle to help me survive.
Under the dense, muddy water, it felt like I had fallen into dangerous white-water rapids with no helmet or protection. The churning mud crushed and tossed my body around as it sped down the terrain’s sloping grade. The magnitude of the pain felt like being crushed in a trash compactor from all angles simultaneously. Under the mud — violently, randomly — my body was hit from all directions.
My legs, my back, my arms, my sides and my head were compressed. Rugged bricks, corners of furniture, large nails from exposed oak floor planks, rocks and granite pounded my body.
Although terrified, I was alert under the flow.
I thought, God if you want me to die now, I will.
My body relaxed like a rag doll in the torrent of mud. I surrendered and went limp. This is how I die.
Underwater, I opened my eyes, straining to see through the dark mud. God, show me the light! I’m in so much pain; let me see the light!
I hoped if I saw the light, the unimaginable pain would end, and I would die.
Then I took my last breath. As I drew the sludge into my lungs instead of air, a stifling, jerking peace came over me. Then everything went blank. Twelve hours later, I lay in a hospital being prepped for surgery. I was groggy from the painkillers but I still sensed the magnitude of what happened. I’d come to on a debris pile and learned that Lauren had been rescued after being buried alive for six hours under 20 feet of mud, two cars, live wires and part of a roof. But we had no news on Dave, Jack or Chester.
The hospital room door opened and the surgeon came to sit on the corner of the bed. He gently grabbed my hand and asked if he could pray with me. I knew I needed all the prayers I could get.
Adapted from Kim Cantin’s “Where Yellow Flowers Bloom,” a memoir about surviving the January 2018 mudslides in Montecito, where she lost her husband Dave, son Jack and dog Chester.