Hard search goes on in California mudslides

Because most churches in coastal Montecito remain in an evacuation area, many worshippers attended Sunday services in nearby towns. Residents will not be allowed to return to their homes while the evacuation order is lifted, which may not happen for one or two weeks, officials said.

Some smaller number, which authorities wouldn’t give, were actively being investigated as missing people who could be dead under the debris.

Officials said people in the Romero Canyon neighbourhood of Montecito were cut off after a massive debris flow blocked the road into the area.

A statement from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s office said the 87-year-old Montecito man was found inside of his home.

“If we don’t get those debris basins cleared out then we’re not going to be prepared for the next storm and we don’t know what that storm is going to look like”. “I’m looking out the front window, I think everything’s fine, everything’s fine, and it wasn’t until I put my boots on and went outside walking and I realized everything wasn’t indeed fine”.

“All hell broke loose”, resident Peter Hartmann told the Associated Press.

Bill Asher walks through mud in his home damaged by storms in Montecito. At least 13 people are dead and hundreds are missing or trapped within their homes as fears that more mudslides could spring up continue to mount.

More than 500 firefighters helped with overnight search and rescue operations, Orozco says. A spokeswoman early in the day sent a shudder through the community when she said the number of people unaccounted for had surged from 16 to 48.

“That’s always our mentality: ‘Hey, we’re going to find someone alive, ‘” Deputy Dan Page, chief of the Altadena Mountain Rescue Team of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, told the AP. “You never know exactly what the human body is capable of”.

The mudslides were triggered early Tuesday morning when heavy rains hit hills recently scorched by the massive Thomas Fire, the largest blaze in state history.

The Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management said Tuesday night that Montecito would be without potable water, electricity and sanitation “for an extended period of time”. “(It) surrounded the house, 2 to 3 feet”.

He said: “We have a yard to redo and hopefully our insurance will help out with that, but the people across from me, newer homes, gone. I feel like I escaped”. Only an estimated 10 to 15 percent of residents fled their homes when ordered, and much of the damage occurred where evacuation orders were voluntary.

My handsome home town, just after getting through weeks of wild fire, has been hit by a major storm.

As the rainwater made its way downhill with gathering force, it pried boulders from the ground and picked up trees and other debris that flattened homes, cars and carried at least one body a mile away.

Tanker trucks sucked muddy water from flooded sections of USA 101, the only direct major artery between Los Angeles and the Santa Barbara region and an important route for many people who work in the Santa Barbara region but live down the coast in Ventura County.