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'I've Just Been Clawing Through the Mud': Search Intensifies for Mudslide Survivors After 15 Killed

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Authorities in southern California say mudslides have killed at least 15 people. Today they'll expand their search for the missing, hoping to find more survivors.

On Tuesday, rescuers were able to reach at least 50 people by helicopter.  

Authorities were bracing for disaster after historic wildfires in the fall blackened hills and stripped them of vegetation. With nothing to hold the soil in place, hard-hitting rains have unleashed deadly torrents of mud that surprised many Santa Barbara county residents in their sleep.

"At 3 in the morning all the debris just came down. It sounded like cars being dragged. We saw the boulders. I tried to get out and couldn't," one resident said.

Ben Hyatt told reporters, "I woke up my wife and we just did not know what to do. We were just surrounded by mud."

In one area of the county, authorities had issued mandatory evacuation orders but less than 15 percent of the residents heeded the warning.

In Santa Barbara county, thousands called for rescue help between 3 and 6 a.m., right after the rains caused flash flooding in the Santa Ynez Mountains.  

Rescuers spent Tuesday climbing on rooftops and using search dogs to try and locate those trapped.  

Some people even went out on their own, searching for loved ones. Robert Riskin and a friend searched for his mother. "I've just been clawing through the mud and it's hard to hold hope when the mud is so deep," he said, "but it's your mom...so you just have to keeping going."

The fast-moving mud worked like concrete, destroying everything in its path Tuesday. In Burbank, a debris basin partially collapsed. In other areas, mud is coming up to the rooflines of homes. Elsewhere, intersections and roads are overrun with flood water.  

Authorities say most of the deaths happened in Montecito, a wealthy community of 9,000 northwest of Los Angeles.  Celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and Rob Lowe own homes there.

Santa Barbara rescuers will receive extra help today from Los Angeles County, the Coast Guard and National Guard.

 

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About The Author

Heather
Sells

Heather Sells covers wide-ranging stories for CBN News that include religious liberty, ministry trends, immigration, and education. She’s known for telling personal stories that capture the issues of the day, from the border sheriff who rescues migrants in the desert to the parents struggling with a child that identifies as transgender. In the last year, she has reported on immigration at the Texas border, from Washington, D.C., in advance of the Dobbs abortion case, at crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, and on sexual abuse reform at the annual Southern Baptist meeting in Anaheim