Posted on 01/10/2005 6:42:33 PM PST by kattracks
LA CONCHITA, Calif. - A huge mudslide crashed down on homes in a coastal hamlet with terrifying force Monday, killing at least one person and leaving up to 12 missing as a Pacific storm hammered Southern California for a fourth straight day. Ventura County Fire Department Chief Bob Roper said at least six and as many as a dozen residents were missing in the mudslide that pummeled a four-block area of homes in tiny La Conchita, about 70 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Nine people were injured, including a 60-year-old man who was buried for three hours.
"It lasted a long time. It was slow-moving. The roofs of the houses were crashing and creaking real loud and there was a huge rumble sound," said Robert Cardoza, a construction worker who was clearing debris from a nearby highway.
The mudslide brought the number of dead from the latest wave of California storms to 10. The storms have sent rainfall totals to astonishing levels, turning normally mild Southern California into a giant flood zone.
The hillside in La Conchita cascaded down like a brown river as authorities were evacuating about 200 residents from the area. Trees and vegetation were carried away, leaving huge gashes of raw earth on the bluff.
Some residents made their way from the area clutching pets, luggage or clothing as the huge mass of mud bore down. Some huddled together or cried as they talked on cell phones. Fifteen to 20 houses were hit by the slide.
Rescuers dropped listening devices into the rubble to try to locate victims before another downpour of up to 2 inches of rain was expected before dawn Tuesday.
La Conchita is a slip of a town pressed between a highway and a towering coastal bluff. Several houses were damaged by a mudslide here during powerful storms in the 1990s.
The destruction at La Conchita was the worst disaster of the storms to date, but mudslides and flooding were reported throughout the region, blocking road and rail travel and forcing a shutdown of interstate petroleum supply lines.
The death toll also includes a 2-year-old girl who slipped from her mother's grasp as rescuers tried to hoist them from a car submerged on a road outside Los Angeles. Avalanches killed two people in Utah and one in Nevada — a 13-year-old snowboarder who was swept off a ski lift to his death.
From the start of the latest dose of violent weather on Friday through midday Monday, several mountainous areas in Southern California had recorded more than 20 inches of rain, including 26 inches in Nordhoff Ridge in the Ventura County mountains.
The rain came on the heels of stormy weather that blasted the state earlier last week.
The average amount of winter rainfall in downtown Los Angeles is 15 inches, but about 21 inches had fallen as of Monday, including a Jan. 9 record of 2.6 inches, said National Weather Service (news - web sites) meteorologist Bruce Rockwell.
"I've never seen such a sustained event like this," Rockwell said.
The heavy rainfall was being generated by a sluggish low-pressure system rotating off California and drawing a flow of moisture known as a "Pineapple Express" up from the subtropical Pacific near Hawaii.
To the north in the Sierra Nevada, the storm produced heavy snow during the weekend that stalled an Amtrak train, shut down the airport at Reno, Nev., for the second time in a week, and halted highway travel across the mountain range.
Since Dec. 28, up to 19 feet of snow has fallen at elevations above 7,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada, with 6 1/2 feet at lower elevations in the Reno area. Meteorologists said it was the most snow the Reno-Lake Tahoe area has seen since 1916.
The commuter link between Reno and Carson City was closed Sunday by whiteout conditions as wind swept down from the Sierra. With visibility sharply reduced, at least 40 vehicles, including three Nevada Highway Patrol cruisers, skidded into snow drifts, ditches and each other. National Guard members used Humvees to pick up the stuck motorists.
"We're talking real ugly conditions. In 12 years with the NHP I've never seen conditions that bad," Trooper Jeff Bowers said.
The train of storms that have slammed into California also have spread rain, snow and ice eastward across the nation.
The storms have piled up 10 feet of snow in the Rockies, where three skiers on a family outing were reported missing Monday.
Four snowmobilers were stranded overnight near Steamboat Springs, Colo., after they got stuck. None was injured, but they considered themselves lucky to get out alive Sunday morning.
Jesse Goble and his brother-in-law started a fire with a stick they saturated in gasoline and lit from a spark plug on one of their machines. They spent the night cutting up a dead tree to feed the flames, sharing a single water bottle with melted snow and four Snickers bars.
"We were fortunate that it was 20 degrees and mostly clear," Goble said. "A few things different, it would have been a whole different story."
Last week's heavy rain and snow also produced flooding along the Ohio River that has affected communities in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, covering riverside roads and forcing some residents to evacuate. One person died Monday in Ohio when he drove into high water.
Tens of thousands remained without power.
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Associated Press Writers Tom Gardner, Jeff Wilson, Gillian Flaccus and Daisy Nguyen contributed to this story.
Can't wait to hear about all the massive amounts of foreign aid that will come pouring in due to this natural disaster in the US...
waiting...
still waiting...
*crickets chirping*
That's what I don't get. Been there, and passed by there many, many times. It's an attractive little place. But not even living in CA for over 12 years now, even I wouldn't buy there if given the chance!
I agree with you. They should turn in into a great little campground.
Ugh, just heard on FOX they confirmed a second person dead from the slide. 24 still missing. Not good.
It's normal. If 4 hurricanes hit Florida every year for the next 10 years, then THAT would be abnormal.
What was genuinely abnormal was the very low number of hurricanes hitting Florida in the previous 40 years.
If there are 5 M 9.0 quakes and giant tsunamis in 2005, THAT would be abnormal. Having an M 9.0 quake and a big tsunami that kills a lot of people is perfectly normal every few decades.
well will see how the rest of the year goes and how the weather works on the world...
There used to be a banana farm on the west end of town. They had all kinds of exotic varieties there - our kids loved trying them. Someone else made the point about how much aid we will get from the Indonesians or Sri Lankans for this disaster - my sentiments exactly. None. They won't even think of us. Same story with the huricanes in Florida. Uncle Sucker ought to let the moslems cough up like the Koran says and they can help their own. Not our job. We will get not thanks and no consideration for our altruism.
They did this months ago and you're blaming the curent storm on that?
Yes this is normal. Not regular... but normal.
Huh? This is a "repeat". This very area is a slide area. The hillside does this when it gets wet. This is the "wettest" year in kalli's history.
People were warned. They stayed.
Thanks. I wasn't aware of the repeat slide zone thing. You have to really like where you live! LOL or be a moron. I think a little of both.
Exactly. If someone lived on the lip of a volcano and then got burned you wouldn't wonder why. Same story here. The hill behind town has been slumping for years. These folks new that they were getting rained on and still they stayed. It must be hard to leave your home, but your choice is to get killed. Sometimes the government won't save you and you have to do it for yourself.
I remember that place! We actually stopped there to pick out a banana tree to take home. I think "it" lives somewhere in Las Vegas now ;) I was sad to hear that the family who owned it sold.
Someone else made the point about how much aid we will get from the Indonesians or Sri Lankans for this disaster - my sentiments exactly.
Bingo. And here we are, at the very time we were getting lambasted by the libs saying the US is "too stingy" and we're not giving enough to the Tsunami folks, Southern California is going through their own "tsunami." It will take a lot for them to rebuild. As is Florida, who is still reeling from their hurricaines.
Help from another country? Ha, shudder the thought.
fyi
Gov Moonbeam.
Camarillo State Hospital is now: Cal State Nuthouse, (Channel Islands). One more thing. Kalli gets rain every seven years, whether they need it or not. This is a desert. Ever hear of "El Nino?".
The averages are deceiving. We average 15 inches a year or so. It comes in 2 heavy years followed by 5 drought years. We had an 8 year drought here not too long ago. I was getting ready to paint my lawn green (what little of it there is);>)
The only thing missing is wildfires and earthquakes, it must
be so exciting to live in california kind of like going to
Natures Casino will I be swallowed by mud or drown in a flash flood, should we put the house here or here on this
hillside with no vegitation on it? Or how about down by that gully its closer to the beach!
Are you ok!?>!?!
LOL!!
Passed by that place after a little shore dive this summer at Deer Creek. Great name.
I believe BG is quite a ways south from this place, thankfully!
PHEW! I know she was worried about some ragind drainage canal behind her house.
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