At least thirteen people have been killed in mudslides in Southern California according to Santa Barbara County Sheriff, with numbers of fatalities expected to rise.
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 in the region last month.
Rescue crews used helicopters to pluck people from rooftops as debris blocked roads, and firefighters pulled a mud-caked 14-year-old girl from a collapsed Montecito home where she had been trapped for hours.
At least 25 people were injured.
The worst hit area of Montecito is a wealthy enclave of about 9,000 people northwest of Los Angeles that is home to such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe and Ellen DeGeneres.
The death toll exceeds the last major California mudslide in 2005, which killed 10 people as a hillside gave way in the town of La Conchita, less than 20 miles (32 km) south of the latest disaster.
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 swept away cars and destroyed several homes, reducing them to piles of rubble. Photos posted on social media showed waist-deep mud in living rooms.
Some residents were unaccounted for in neighborhoods hard to reach because of downed trees and power lines, Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman Dave Zaniboni said.
"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. "I saw two other vehicles moving slowly sideways down the middle of the street in a river of mud."
Authorities had been bracing for the possibility of catastrophic flooding because of heavy rain in the forecast for the first time in 10 months.
Some residents were unaccounted for in neighborhoods hard to reach because of downed trees and power lines, Santa Barbara County Fire Department spokesman Dave Zaniboni said.
"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. "I saw two other vehicles moving slowly sideways down the middle of the street in a river of mud."
Authorities had been bracing for the possibility of catastrophic flooding because of heavy rain in the forecast for the first time in 10 months.
"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.
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.
"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. "It was scary."
Hartmann said he found a father-son tennis trophy awarded in 1991 to men 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 communities are 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 (1,140 square kilometers) 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.
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