CA Mudslides: 'Searching For Miracles'

MONTECITO, CA — Three days out from mudslides that tore families apart, washed homes aways and carried cars out to sea, hope for finding survivors is diminishing in Montecito even as the tally of the missing went up Friday.

Authorities increased their estimate of the missing to 43, up from eight. The process has been a heart-wrenching one with authorities mining evacuation centers and social media for clues as to who is still missing. At the same time, search and rescue crews are wading through the devastation for signs of life and death, marking boulders and buried homes where search dogs will be needed. The death toll of 18 is likely to increase Friday as search and rescue crews make their way through the battered valley where nearly 100 homes were destroyed in minutes.

“Searching For a Miracle”

As the odds of finding survivors diminish, residents in Montecito are clinging to hope, buoyed by unlikely stories of survival and heroism.

"In disaster circumstances, there have been many miraculous stories of people lasting many days,” Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told the Los Angeles Times. “We certainly are searching for a miracle right now."

Amid the devastation, there have been glimmers of hope.

Berkeley Johnson saw a 20-foot wall of boulders, cars and tree trunks racing toward his home Tuesday. His family scrambled onto a rooftop uncertain if they would survive. When it was over, they were still alive. And, somehow, underneath of the roar of the sliding hillside, they heard a sound. It was a crying baby.

"I don't know how we heard it because it was so loud. Went into this pile and down in the muck in the middle of nowhere, there was a little baby. This little child just in the mud, up to its... tangled in the roots and metal and the rock and if we weren't standing within two feet of that thing we wouldn't have ever heard it,” Johnson told CBS. "The girl's OK. Unbelievable. If you've seen ... there's just no way we should have found that child," Johnson said.

But for as many stories of survival, there are stories of loss, of couples torn apart by mud, of a mother surviving while her children died.

While keeping hope alive, Brown also sought to prepare the community for more bad news.

"But realistically we suspect that we are going to continue to have discovery of people who were killed in this incident," he told CNN.

The List Goes On And On

Authorities on Thursday identified 17 of the lives lost.

“All of the victims are from Montecito, and they range in age from as young as 3 years to a high of 89 years,” said Brown. “There are four juveniles on the list. There are mothers fathers, grandfathers siblings, and the list goes on an on.

Those killed include:

• Kailly Benitez, 3
• Jonathan Benitez, 10
• Peerawat Sutthithepn, 6
• Sawyer Corey, 12
• Martin Cabrera-Munoz, 48
• David Cantin, 49
• Peter Fleurat, 73
• Josephine Gower, 69
• John McManigal, 61
• Alice Mitchell, 78
• James Mitchell, 89
• Mark Montgomery, 54
• Caroline Montgomery, 22
• Marilyn Ramos, 27
• Rebecca Riskin, 61
• Roy Rohter, 84
• Richard Taylor, 67

Authorities estimate that nearly 100 homes were destroyed in the mudslides and several hundred more were damaged. Entire businesses were washed downhill, and the 101 Freeway remains lost to the sea of debris. Already devastated by the December Thomas Fire, the largest in state history, the upscale hillside enclave is once again enduring catastrophe, and the danger isn’t over as the year’s rainy season has just begun.

“People Stop Listening”

Though the community has barely begun the process of recovery, authorities in Santa Barbara County are already under fire for their handling of the evacuation, namely, the decision not to send out a cellphone alert until the mountain of debris had already begun rolling downhill. According to the Los Angeles Times, county officials had sent out 200,000 emails warning of the risk of mudslides in the days leading up to Tuesday’s storm, but the rainfall was much heavier than anticipated.

The emergency cell phone alert did not go out until about 3:50 a.m, after the mudslide had started, the Times reported.

Jeff Gater, Santa Barbara County’s emergency manager, explained the hesitation.

“If you tell everyone to get out, everyone get out, the next time people won’t listen,” he told the Times. “If you cry wolf, people stop listening.”

RELATED:

Death Toll Of CA Mudslides Climbs With 43 Missing

OC Search & Rescue Dog Jester Aids In Montecito Mudslide Rescue

Photo: 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)