Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
‘It’s just waiting and not knowing’
Calif. mudslide toll: At least 17 dead, 13 missing, 28 injured
MONTECITO, Calif. — Anxious family members awaited word on loved ones Wednesday as rescue crews searched for at least a dozen people missing after mudslides in Southern California destroyed an estimated 100 houses, swept away cars and left at least 17 victims dead.
At least 28 others had been reported injured, and 13 more are missing, officials said.
“We have no idea where they’re at. We think somewhere in the debris field,” Amber Anderson, a Santa Barbara County spokeswoman, said of the missing.
Officials fear the number of deaths could rise.
Officials have yet to publicly identify any of those killed in the mudslides. Mike Eliason, public information officer for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, said there were juveniles among the deceased.
“It’s just waiting and not knowing, and the more I haven’t heard from them — we have to find them,” said Kelly Weimer, whose elderly parents’ home was wrecked by the torrent of mud, trees and boulders that slammed into this coastal town in Santa Barbara County.
The mudslides began around 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, when intense rains dislodged boulders and caused heavy mudflow along hillsides that were scarred by the Thomas fire late last year. A number of homes were ripped from their foundations, with some pulled more than a halfmile.
“It looked like a World War I battlefield,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said Tuesday.
Approximately 100 homes were destroyed and 300 were damaged in the mudslides, Anderson said.
The drenching storm that triggered the disaster had cleared out Wednesday as searchers worked in a landscape strewn with hazards.
“We’ve gotten multiple reports of rescuers falling through manholes that were covered with mud, swimming pools that were covered up with mud,” said Anthony Buzzerio, a Los Angeles County fire battalion chief. “The mud is acting like a candy shell on ice cream. It’s crusty on top but soft underneath, so we’re having to be very careful.”
Buzzerio led a team of 14 firefighters and six dogs in the debris field, which was spread over 30 square miles.
As rescue crews tried to open pathways, some residents walked through the mud hoping to aid in the search.
With a shovel in one hand, a man who asked to be identified only as Mikey smoked a cigarette and then started shoveling mud from an intersection.
He had been out since 5 a.m. looking for his girlfriend's missing sisters: Morgan and Sawyer Corey. He said their house, located roughly a half-mile away, had been swept away.
“They are good people,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I'm hoping to find them.”
Weimer’s parents, Jim and Alice Mitchell, didn’t heed a voluntary evacuation warning and had decided to stay home Monday to celebrate her father’s 89th birthday.
She hoped to find them in a shelter or hospital.
“They’re an adorable couple, and they were in love with their house,” Weimer said. “That’s their forever home.”
People in Montecito, a coastal enclave of about 9,000 people northwest of Los Angeles that is home to such celebrities as Ellen DeGeneres, Rob Lowe and Oprah Winfrey, had counted themselves lucky last month after the biggest wildfire in California history spared the town.
But it was the fire that led to the mudslide, by burning away vegetation.
“We totally thought we were out of the woods,” said Jennifer Markham, whose home escaped damage in both disasters. “I was frozen yesterday morning thinking, ‘This is a million times worse than that fire ever was.’ ”
Downtown Montecito was covered in mud and debris. A Santa Barbara County fire official, who declined to provide his name, described a scene out of a disaster movie.
“Inside the debris we’re finding bodies,” he said.