Mudslides hit Southern California in latest US weather chaos, at least 8 dead
Updated
At least eight people died and thousands fled their homes in Southern California as a powerful rainstorm triggered flash floods and mudslides on slopes where a series of intense wildfires had burned off protective vegetation last month.
The heavy downpours subsided after prompting evacuation orders for residents along the Pacific Coast north of Los Angeles, but forecasters warned of more rain throughout the day.
Rainfall totals ranged from 50mm to 110mm in the area, according to the National Weather Service.
Rescue crews used helicopters to pluck people from rooftops because debris blocked roads, and firefighters pulled a mud-caked 14-year-old girl from a collapsed home in the upscale community of Montecito, where she had been trapped for hours.
Incident command spokeswoman Amber Anderson said Santa Barbara was the hardest-hit county in the region.
She did not specify the cause of the fatalities, but said they occurred where there were mudslides.
The threat of mudslides prompted the county to order 7,000 residents to leave their homes before the rains came and to urge 23,000 others to evacuate voluntarily.
The county set up an evacuation shelter at Santa Barbara City College and gave residents a place to take their animals.
The weather in Southern California was mild this week, so residents who fled their homes did not have to endure the cold snap that has gripped the US Midwest and East Coast in recent weeks.
Residents in Montecito were not put under mandatory evacuation orders before mud from a creek cascaded toward homes, Ms Anderson said.
All eight deaths were believed to have occurred in Montecito, Santa Barbara County spokesman David Villalobos said.
The wealthy enclave of about 9,000 people north-west of Los Angeles is home to celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe and Ellen DeGeneres.
An unknown number of people in the county were unaccounted for, Ms Anderson added, and 25 residents have been injured.
Photos posted by the local fire department showed a teenager covered in black mud being led away from the rubble of a house that had been destroyed by the Montecito mudslide.
She had been trapped in the home for hours before rescuers came to her aid, the Santa Barbara County Fire Department said on Twitter.
Other pictures showed ankle-deep mud, logs and boulders in residential areas.
Emergency workers, using search dogs and helicopters, have rescued dozens of people stranded in rubble, Ms Anderson said.
Last month's wildfires, the largest in California's 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 which prevents water from sinking deeply into the ground.
The overnight rains forced road closures, including a 48-kilometre stretch of US Highway 101, essentially cutting off traffic between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties north-west of Los Angeles.
Ventura County escaped with little damage, the county sheriff's office said.
Reuters/AP
Topics: weather, disasters-and-accidents, united-states
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