Boy swept away, at least 14 dead in Calif. storms
Weather brings mudslides, road closures, floods
LOS ANGELES — Rescuers ended the search for a 5-yearold boy who was swept away by floodwaters in central coastal California while the entire community of Montecito was ordered evacuated Monday as residents grappled with flooding and mudslides as the latest in a series of powerful storms walloped the state.
Tens of thousands of people remained without power, and some schools closed for the day. The number of deaths related to the storms climbed from 12 to 14 on Monday, state officials said.
The search for the boy, who has not been declared dead, was called off around 3 p.m. because the current and rising water levels of the Salinas River were too dangerous for divers, said spokesperson Tony Cipolla of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff ’s Office.
The boy’s mother was driving a white truck when it became stranded in floodwaters just before 8 a.m. near Paso Robles, according to Tom Swanson, assistant chief of the Cal Fire/San Luis Obispo County Fire Department.
Bystanders were able to pull the mother out of the truck, but the boy was carried out of the vehicle and swept downstream, Swanson said. There was no evacuation order in the area at the time. A firefighter discovered one of the boy’s shoes, but crews still had not found the child more than five hours later.
Meanwhile, south of Paso Robles, the entire community of Montecito and surrounding canyons scarred by recent wildfires were under an evacuation order.
The National Weather Service reported that at least 8 inches of rain fell over 12 hours, with several more inches predicted before the latest storm system moves through an area where roads wind along wooded hillsides studded with large houses. Upscale Montecito is squeezed between mountains and the Pacific and is home to celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe, and Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Jamie McLeod’s property was under the Montecito evacuation order, but she said there is no way for her to get out with an overflowing creek on one side and a mudslide on the other.
“As of two hours ago, I am trapped,” she said Monday afternoon. “I can’t get off the mountain.”
The 60-year-old owner of the Santa Barbara Bird Sanctuary said one of her employees came to make a weekly food delivery and is stuck too.
McLeod said she feels fortunate because her home sits on high ground and the power is still on.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the decision to evacuate nearly 10,000 people was “based on the continuing high rate of rainfall with no indication that that is going to change before nightfall.” Creeks were overflowing, and many roads were flooded, he said.
Up the coast, evacuation orders were issued in coastal, woodsy Santa Cruz County for about 32,000 residents living near rain-swollen rivers and creeks, said Melodye Serino, the deputy county administrative officer. The San Lorenzo River was declared at flood stage, and drone footage showed numerous homes sitting in muddy brown water, the top halves of autos peeking out.
Despite the deadly nature of storms, residents of tiny, flooded Felton remained calm and upbeat.
Christine Patracuola, the owner of Rocky’s Cafe for 25 years, handed out free coffee to customers whose homes lacked power Monday.
“A little coffee can’t hurt anybody," she said. “You can’t really change Mother Nature; you just have to roll with the punches and hope you don’t get swept up into it.”
Nicole Martin, third-generation owner of the Fern River Resort in Felton, said Monday that her clients sipped coffee, sat on cabin porches amid towering redwood trees, and were “enjoying the show” as picnic tables and other debris floated down the swollen San Lorenzo.
President Biden issued an emergency declaration Monday to support storm response and relief efforts in more than a dozen counties, including Sacramento, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles.
Governor Gavin Newsom said on Sunday that 12 people died as a result of violent weather during the past 10 days, and he warned that this week’s storms could be even more dangerous. On Monday, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services reported two more deaths by falling tree, one of a homeless person in Sacramento, and the other of a person inside a home.
The storms won’t be enough to officially end California’s drought, but they have helped.