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.
Thats too funny. Do you live in Santa Barbara? They had to do that a few years back when there was a severe water shortage.
The risk of mortality is higher from tornados in the midwest than from earthquakes and wildfires here in CA. Statistical fact. We get a lot of media attention. The rest of the country does the dying and/or destruction. And you can keep the snowy winters too. Only wish we could figure out a way to send the liberals back home to you. Somehow they all want to move here and cr@p the place up. I wish Ron Reagan were governor again.
Yep. The neighborhood is called San Roque - off of upper (western) State Street.
I take that back Claptrap. I dont want to send the liberals back to you personally. I just remember growing up here, when this wasnt the land of fruits and nuts.
ROTFLOL!! I love it! and BTTT!
We get winters like this every decade or so due to a phenomena called "el nino" or what they're calling it now "pineapple express"... or a type of move in the jet stream which moves warm water and weather into southern california.
We had one in 1982, 1987, 1994/5, and this year.
1982 was especially destructive. I live in Long Beach and that winter we had 25 foot surf, the Seal Beach pier was destroyed, part of the breakwater at the Seal Beach naval weapons station and the port of long beach was destroyed... dozens of houses were washed out on their bottom floor, etc.
I almost had my car washed out in an intersection last night due to flooding in the streets.
See... southern California is a flood plain. When we get really nasty storms... there is no place for the water to go since its so developed and the flood control basins are way too small. Coyote Creek which runs right by my house was almost cresting over the top last night... and today you guys might have seen those crazy videos of the man being rescued from coyote creek (concrete river basin) and lost his pants... but escaped with his life.
And there was 6 feet of new snow in Big Bear. We skied through early April that year :D
.....maybe I should start going to Church just in case.
Well yes couldn't hurt any! lol
Just in case my rational side is wrong.
I remember when the last La Conchita mudslide happened very well. In fact, over Christmas, I was in the area visiting my family and I pointed out to my husband how they had never actually dug out the houses that were crushed in the first slide. You could see their remains ten years later sticking out of the hill.
I guess you can't see them anymore.
Prayers for all involved, and sincere hopes that the remaining La Conchita residents will take this as their cue to move to a safer spot.
I have always condsidered my faith to be along the lines of what Pascal's Wager states - it is pretty much how the Mongols viewed the spiritual world.
I am a Roman Catholic BUT if I sit back and think about it, I have zero to lose by believing in God anyway.
I was too young to remember... but in 1997 i recall skiing in Mammoth, CA on the 4th of July!!!!!
They were playing Volleyball at the mid-Chalet and i was skiing in my snowboard pants and a t-shirt. It was amazing.
They had a 25' base.
The process for seeding clouds involves silver iodide, which precipitates into the atmosphere, affecting storms for many months to come. It isn't a one time deal. One seeding can last many months to come, which is why the government will not acknowledge damage caused by the storms many months after the cloud seeding.
Source = my bf. He told me in the fall what to expect. He was right...
This same area had a mudslide like this one 10 years ago and houses were buried under mud as well as a 1948 Woodie Classic Car.
It wouldn't even be a good campsite. 10 Years ago when there was this same sort of mudslide, the campsite along this same freeway washed out to sea.
Thanks, rintense...I'm just fine. We're faring FAR better than a lot of communities.
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