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In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County Fire Department, firefighters successfully rescue a 14-year-old girl, right, after she was trapped for hours inside a destroyed home in Montecito, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Multiple people were killed and homes were swept from their foundations as mud and debris from wildfire-scarred hillsides flowed through neighborhoods and onto a key Southern California highway Tuesday during a powerful winter storm that dropped record rain across the state. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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A structure is smashed against a tree along Hot Springs Road in Montecito, Calif. after getting hit by a flash flood and debris flow on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Several homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Daniel Dreifuss)
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A member of the Long Beach Search and Rescue team looks for survivors in a car in Montecito, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Several homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Daniel Dreifuss)
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Debris and mud cover the street in front of local area shops after heavy rain brought flash flooding on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018 in Montecito, Calif. At least five people were killed and homes were swept from their foundations Tuesday as heavy rain sent mud and boulders sliding down hills stripped of vegetation by a gigantic wildfire that raged in Southern California last month. (Daniel Dreifuss)
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This photo provided by Ventura County Sheriff's Office shows an arial view of Montecito, Calif., with mudflow and debris due to heavy rains on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Several homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Ventura County Sheriff's Office via AP)
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In this photo provided by the Santa Barbara County Fire Department, shows a semi-tractor trailer sits stuck in mud on U.S. Highway 101, in Montecito, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County Fire Department, mud and debris flow on the roadway due to heavy rain in Montecito. Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Heavy rains pounding Southern California for a second day are causing floods and loosening hillsides as officials in fire-ravaged communities warn people to stay off roads over fears of mud and debris flows. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County Fire Department, firefighters respond to mud and debris flow due to heavy rain in Montecito. Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Heavy rains pounding Southern California for a second day are causing floods and loosening hillsides as officials in fire-ravaged communities warn people to stay off roads over fears of mud and debris flows. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County Fire Department, mud and debris flow due to heavy rain in Montecito. Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. A fire official says five people have been killed by mudslides that swept Southern California homes from their foundations as a powerful storm drenched recent wildfire burn areas. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County Fire Department, a K-9 search and rescue team walks into an area of debris and mud flow due to heavy rain in Montecito. Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. A fire official says five people have been killed by mudslides that swept Southern California homes from their foundations as a powerful storm drenched recent wildfire burn areas. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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Phillip Harnsberger crosses through mud from a flooded creek on Sheffield Drive in Montecito, Calif., following heavy rain, Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Multiple people were killed and homes were torn from their foundations Tuesday as downpours sent mud and boulders roaring down hills stripped of vegetation by a gigantic wildfire that raged in Southern California last month. (AP Photo/Michael Owen Baker)
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Debris and mud cover the entrance of the Montecito Inn after heavy rain brought flash flooding and mudslides to the area in Montecito, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. At least five people were killed and homes were swept from their foundations Tuesday as heavy rain sent mud and boulders sliding down hills stripped of vegetation by a gigantic wildfire that raged in Southern California last month. (Daniel Dreifuss)
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In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County Fire Department, Santa Barbara County Fire Search Dog Reilly looks for victims in damaged and destroyed homes in Montecito, Calif. following deadly runoff of mud and debris from heavy rain on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. At least five people were killed and homes were swept from their foundations Tuesday as heavy rain sent mud and boulders sliding down hills stripped of vegetation by a gigantic wildfire that raged in Southern California last month. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County Fire Department, the U.S. 101 freeway at the Olive Mill Road overpass is flooded with runoff water from Montecito Creek in Montecito, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Several homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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Scott Dixon of the Long Beach Search and Rescue team looks for survivors between Hot Springs Road and Olive Mill Road in Montecito, Calif on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Several homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Daniel Dreifuss)
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In this photo provided by Santa Barbara County Fire Department, U.S. 101 freeway at the Olive Mill Road overpass is flooded with runoff water from Montecito Creek in Montecito, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Several homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Mike Eliason/Santa Barbara County Fire Department via AP)
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A structure is smashed against a tree along Hot Springs Road in Montecito, Calif. after getting hit by a flash flood and debris flow on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Several homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Daniel Dreifuss)
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This photo provided by Ventura County Sheriff's Office shows an arial view of Montecito, Calif., with mudflow and debris due to heavy rains on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018. Several homes were swept away before dawn Tuesday when mud and debris roared into neighborhoods in Montecito from hillsides stripped of vegetation during a recent wildfire. (Ventura County Sheriff's Office via AP)
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By CHRISTOPHER WEBER and DANIEL DREIFUSS,
The Associated Press
MONTECITO — At least 13 people were killed and homes were torn from their foundations Tuesday as downpours sent mud and boulders roaring down hills stripped of vegetation by a gigantic wildfire that raged in Southern California last month.
Rescue crews used helicopters to pluck people from rooftops because trees and power lines blocked roads, and firefighters pulled a mud-caked 14-year-old girl from a collapsed Montecito home where she had been trapped for hours.
“I thought I was dead for a minute there,” the girl could be heard saying on video posted by KNBC-TV before she was taken away on a stretcher.
Most deaths were believed to have occurred in Montecito, a wealthy enclave of about 9,000 people that is home to such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe and Ellen DeGeneres, said Santa Barbara County spokesman David Villalobos. At least 25 people were injured and others were unaccounted for.
The mud was unleashed in the dead of night by flash flooding in the steep, fire-scarred Santa Ynez Mountains. Burned-over zones are especially susceptible to destructive mudslides because scorched earth doesn’t absorb water well and the land is easily eroded when there are no shrubs.
The torrent of mud early Tuesday swept away cars and destroyed several homes, reducing them to piles of lumber. Photos posted on social media showed waist-deep mud in living rooms.
“I came around the house and heard a deep rumbling, an ominous sound I knew was … boulders moving as the mud was rising,” said Thomas Tighe, who discovered two of his cars missing from the driveway in the middle of the night. “I saw two other vehicles moving slowly sideways down the middle of the street in a river of mud.”
In daylight, Tighe was shocked to see a body pinned by muck against his neighbor’s home. He wasn’t sure who it was.
Authorities had been bracing for the possibility of catastrophic flooding because of heavy rain in the forecast for the first time in 10 months.
Evacuations were ordered beneath recently burned areas of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles counties. But only an estimated 10 to 15 percent of people in a mandatory evacuation area of Santa Barbara County heeded the warning, authorities said.
Marshall Miller, who evacuated his home in Montecito on Monday with his family, returned to check for damage and found his neighborhood devastated. He never reached his home because two of his neighbors, an elderly woman and her adult daughter, needed a lift to the hospital after being rescued by firefighters.
The pair had left their house before it was inundated with 6 feet of mud, but they got trapped outside in the deep sludge.
“It was sobering,” Miller said. “I saw them covered in mud and shaking from the cold.”
The path of the deluge was graphically illustrated on the side of a white colonial-style house, where a dark gray stain created a wavy pattern halfway up the front windows.
Cars were washed off roads, and one was deposited upside down in a tangle of tree limbs. In Los Angeles, a police cruiser got swamped in tire-deep mud.
A stretch of U.S. Highway 101 looked like a muddy river clogged with trees and other debris and was closed between Ventura County and Santa Barbara County. A kayak was marooned in the flotsam, and a Range Rover was buried up to its bumpers.
Some of the worst damage was on Montecito’s Hot Springs Road, where the unidentified girl was rescued and residents had been under a voluntary evacuation warning. Large boulders were washed out of a previously dry creek bed and scattered across the road.
A rescuer working with a search dog walked among the ruins of a house as the yellow Labrador wagged its tail and scrambled into a destroyed building, looking for anyone trapped inside. Its belly and paws were black from the mud.
The worst of the rainfall occurred in a 15-minute span starting at 3:30 a.m. Montecito got more than a half-inch in five minutes, while Carpinteria received nearly an inch in 15 minutes.
“All hell broke loose,” said Peter Hartmann, a dentist who moonlights as a news photographer for the local website Noozhawk.
“There were gas mains that had popped, where you could hear the hissing,” he said. “Power lines were down, high-voltage power lines, the large aluminum poles to hold those were snapped in half. Water was flowing out of water mains and sheared-off fire hydrants.”
Hartmann watched rescuers revive a toddler pulled unresponsive from the muck.
“It was a freaky moment to see her just covered in mud,” he said.
Hartmann said he found a tennis trophy awarded in 1991 to a father-son team his wife knows.
“Both of them were caught in the flood. Son’s in the hospital, dad hasn’t been found yet,” he said, declining to name them.
The first confirmed death was Roy Rohter, a former real estate broker who founded St. Augustine Academy in Ventura. The Catholic school’s headmaster, Michael Van Hecke, announced the death and said Rohter’s wife was injured by the mudslide.
Montecito is beneath the scar left by a wildfire that erupted Dec. 4 and became the largest ever recorded in California. It spread over more than 440 square miles and destroyed 1,063 homes and other structures. It continues to smolder deep in the wilderness.
The storm walloped much of the state with damaging winds and thunderstorms. Downtown San Francisco got a record 3.15 inches of rain on Monday, smashing the old mark of 2.36 inches set in 1872.
#BREAKING: Mudslide shuts down the 101 in Montecito. People asking to be rescued from vehicles who are trapped in water. Reports of homeowners trapped by rising water around their homes. Multiple homes on fire bc of a gas line break. @NBCLA photo cred: @_FabRamirez pic.twitter.com/9THfBqAiOA
— Daniella Guzman (@DaniellaNBCLA) January 9, 2018
NEW VIDEO: Fire burning out of control in Montecito. This is about a half mile away from the fire burning on Park Hill Ln. where there was a gas line explosion & several buildings are reportedly on fire. @nbcla Video from @TonyMiller_SB https://t.co/G9wsfA6mn3
— Daniella Guzman (@DaniellaNBCLA) January 9, 2018
Entire sky lit up as seen from upper village 4 am. Massive mud flows in Montecito causing gas line rupture. Emergency personnel having trouble accessing area. #montecito #storm #mudflow pic.twitter.com/2J4fSl030s
— Home Crush (@HomeCrush) January 9, 2018
Viewer Mary Long sent in this photo from Santo Tomas Lane in Montecito. Mud in her living room. #CAStorm pic.twitter.com/uRL2ZBuLQA
— Joe Buttitta (@KEYTNC3Joe) January 9, 2018
Multiple victims in Montecito flooding disaster. Several missing. 2 year old reportedly pulled from mud alone more coming.… pic.twitter.com/glvoGih8yR
— John Palminteri (@KEYTNC3JohnP) January 9, 2018
Debris covers the streets along Coast Village Road. #CAwx #CAstorm #SantaBarbara #Montecito pic.twitter.com/TvKezRyX20
— Fabiola Ramirez (@_FabRamirez) January 9, 2018
