LOS ANGELES - Authorities in southern California raised the death toll from mudslides that battered the region to 19 on Saturday as rescue workers continued the search for victims.
Five people are still missing after the mudslides, according to an update on the County of Santa Barbara's website, which warned people to "anticipate the numbers of missing persons to fluctuate significantly."
"Crews continue to search buildings and debris flows for trapped victims. The unstable environment remains a critical threat to civilians and responders," it said.
"The large amounts of mud and debris are making access and progress challenging."
Heavy rain on Tuesday, which followed 10 months of drought, sent sticky mud and debris flowing down the hills into Montecito.
In addition to the dead and injured, 65 homes have been destroyed while another 462 sustained damage.
Terrifying wildfires in the area forced evacuations in December, and the mudslides struck just two weeks after people returned.
The fires burned most vegetation, leaving perfect conditions for the latest disaster to unfold.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LOS ANGELES - California rescuers worked through the night plucking stranded Santa Barbara residents from mudslides that have killed at least 15 people and devastated the coastal community after it was drenched by rain, authorities said on Wednesday.
The death toll could go higher still as rescuers continued searching for victims, mostly in the upscale enclave of Montecito - where mudslides slammed into homes, covered highways and swept away vehicles - officials warned.
"We don't know how many additional people are still trapped," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said on the "CBS This Morning" program. "We know there are some, and we're still making our way into certain areas of Montecito and the adjacent areas to determine if anyone is still there and still alive."
The mudslides followed an ordeal of fire and water for the area northwest of Los Angeles. A torrential downpour on Tuesday soaked the area, which was left vulnerable after much of its vegetation burned in the state's largest wildfire last month.
Forecasters were calling for clear skies on Wednesday.
Emergency workers began their task on Tuesday using search dogs and helicopters to rescue dozens of people stranded in mud-coated rubble in the normally pristine area, sandwiched between the ocean and the sprawling Los Padres National Forest.
A 14-year-old girl was found alive on Tuesday after firefighters using rescue dogs heard cries for help from what was left of her Montecito home, the Los Angeles Times reported.
"I thought I was dead there for a minute," the teenager Lauren Cantin, covered in mud, told NBC News after workers spent six hours rescuing her.
Rescuers worked through the night, searching for victims amid the dozens of homes that were destroyed, and using helicopters to lift more than 50 stranded residents from the mud.
"We're finding people continuously," said Yaneris Muniz, spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Joint Information Center. "We had a helicopter and several crews out all night, and now that it's day, we’ll be able to intensify those searches."
Officials have ordered residents in a large swath of Montecito to stay in their homes so that rescuers can better go about their work.
About 300 people were stranded in a canyon. Local rescue crews, using borrowed helicopters from the U.S. Coast Guard, worked to airlift them out, officials said.
The county initially ordered 7,000 residents to evacuate and urged another 23,000 to do so voluntarily, but only 10 to 15 percent complied with mandatory orders, said Amber Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Fire Department.
The county set up an evacuation shelter at Santa Barbara City College, where some people showed up drenched in mud, and also provided a place for people to take their animals.
The number of fatalities surpassed the death toll from a California mudslide on Jan. 10, 2005, when 10 people were killed as a hillside gave way in the town of La Conchita, less than 20 miles south of the latest disaster.
Last month's wildfires, the largest in California history, left the area vulnerable to mudslides. The fires burned away grass and shrubs that hold the soil in place and also baked a waxy layer into the earth that prevents water from sinking deeply into the ground.
Some local residents had to flee their homes due to the fires last month and again this week because of the rains.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
FARIA BEACH, CALIFORNIA - Wildfires roared through canyons, hillsides and residential areas in densely populated Southern California for a fourth day on Thursday as gusting winds hampered efforts to quell the flames.
Some 200,000 people have evacuated ahead of the fires, which have destroyed hundreds of homes and forced hundreds of Los Angeles-area schools to close.
Authorities feared the 4 major fires - ranging from Los Angeles up the Pacific coast to Santa Barbara County - would be whipped up by the region's notorious westward Santa Ana winds that could reach hurricane strength.
The winds, which blow in hot and dry from the California desert, could reach 75 miles per hour (120 km per hour) on Thursday and create "extreme fire danger," according to an alert sent by the countywide emergency system in Los Angeles. The National Weather Service said high winds were expected to continue at least through Saturday.
The fires, which broke out on Monday and Tuesday, have reached into the wealthy enclave of Bel-Air on Los Angeles' West Side. Some major highways in the densely populated area were intermittently closed.
North of San Diego, another blaze called the Lilac Fire grew from about 10 acres to between 100 and 150 acres in less than an hour, destroying two structures and prompting evacuations, the local CAL FIRE agency reported.
No civilian casualties or fatalities have been reported from the blazes but three firefighters were injured, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Firefighters and helicopters sprayed and dumped bucketloads of water to try to contain the flames against a hellish backdrop of flaming mountains and walls of smoke.
About 100 firefighters fended off flames in the seaside enclave of Faria Beach, caught between burning mountains and the Pacific Ocean, northwest of Ventura. Fires spread down the smoking hills, jumping the heavily used U.S. 101 highway, and headed toward clusters of beach houses. Firefighters lined up along a railroad track, the last barrier from the flames.
Surrounded by strong winds and smoke, Songsri Kesonchampa aimed a garden hose at a large pine tree between her Feria Beach house and the fire, attempting to fend off disaster.
“If this tree catches fire, the strong wind will blow the flames towards my house. I need to protect this tree,” she said.
“In the 10 years I’ve lived here, I have never seen anything like this,” she added. As she spoke, a sheriff’s car drove by, ordering residents to evacuate. “The fire is here. You must evacuate your homes right now,” an officer said over the loudspeaker.
Nearby, Ventura resident Shana Dalton was checking on her friends’ house. “One minute the flames were on the mountains and then next thing you know, they jumped the 101 and the train tracks and were right in front of us,” she said.
Because of the heavy smoke, the South Coast Air Quality Management District warned residents, especially the elderly, children, pregnant women and people with respiratory diseases, to stay indoors. Ventura County authorities said air quality in the Ojai Valley area was hazardous with "numbers ... off the charts."
The Thomas Fire, the largest in the area, continued its westward push on Thursday, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of Santa Barbara County residents and the closing of Highway 101 north of Ventura city. The fire has destroyed more than 150 homes and threatened thousands more in Ventura.
In the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, the Creek Fire destroyed at least 30 homes, blackened more than 12,000 acres (4,800 hectares) and forced the evacuation of 2,500 homes and a convalescent center.
Another blaze, the Rye Fire, threatened more than 5,000 homes and structures northwest of Los Angeles.
The Skirball Fire in Los Angeles has forced hundreds of residents in the wooded hills near the Bel-Air neighborhood to evacuate and charred more than 475 acres (192 hectares).
Skirball threatened media magnate Rupert Murdoch's Moraga Estate winery. The property was evacuated, with possible damage to some buildings, Murdoch said in a statement, but “We believe the winery and house are still intact."
The Los Angeles Police Department tweeted "LAPD Working to Save Every Californian, Pets Included" along with a photo of a police officer in a respirator rescuing a cat.
CLASSES CANCELED
The Los Angeles Unified School District, the country's second largest with more than 640,000 students, said it closed at least 265 of its nearly 1,100 schools. The University of California Santa Barbara canceled classes as well.
Dozens of schools also were closed in Ventura County, where the Thomas Fire has charred more than 96,000 acres (38,850 hectares). The school district, with nearly 17,000 students, hoped to reopen on Monday.
San Diego Gas & Electric said it was turning off power to customers in some mountain communities northeast of San Diego to lessen fire danger and warned the outage could last several days.
The fires are the second outbreak to ravage parts of California this autumn. The celebrated wine country in the northern part of the state was hit by wind-driven wildfires in October that killed at least 43 people, forced some 10,000 to flee their homes and consumed at least 245,000 acres (9,900 hectares) north of the San Francisco Bay area.
The California Department of Insurance said the northern California blazes caused insured losses of more than $9 billion.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
