Death Toll from Calif. Mudslides Climbs to 20

Los Angeles Times

Jan. 15—REPORTING FROM MONTECITO, Calif.—The death toll in the Montecito mudslides climbed to 20 on Sunday, as officials continued to work to clear the mud and debris-strewn U.S. Highway 101, which has been closed indefinitely.

After days of scouring the devastation looking for signs of life, authorities on Sunday transitioned into a search-and-recovery phase as the hope of finding survivors in the muck dwindled.

"This decision was not made lightly," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told reporters Sunday afternoon.

The body of the latest victim, identified as 30-year-old Pinit Sutthithepa, was discovered Saturday afternoon as authorities continued to search for several people still missing from the deluge, officials said. At least four other people, including Sutthithepa's 2-year-old daughter, Lydia, are still unaccounted for.

At least 296 buildings were damaged or destroyed by last week's mudslides, officials said Sunday after a partial, preliminary inspection. That includes 73 homes that were destroyed and 61 others that sustained major damage.

Inspectors have completed about 35% of their assessments for residential and commercial buildings. As authorities continue to survey affected areas, the number of buildings affected will likely rise.

On Wednesday, Santa Barbara County will open an assistance center at the Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara to offer resources to help the community recover and rebuild.

A candlelight vigil for the victims of the mudslide is scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday in the sunken gardens area outside the Santa Barbara County Courthouse. A banner that hung on a concrete wall in a residential neighborhood devastated by the mudslide read, "So much loss, but so much love. Pray for Montecito."

CalTrans crews continued to work Sunday to clear a two-mile stretch of the freeway that was initially expected to re-open Monday. But officials said cleaning up one part of the freeway at Olive Mill Road was proving especially difficult because it is one of the lowest points in the city and serves as a magnet for water and mud.

By Sunday afternoon, Caltrans crews had removed 150 yards of debris from northbound lanes and 80 yards of debris from southbound lanes, CalTrans spokesman Jim Shivers said.

Aided by private contractors and the Army Corps of Engineers, maintenance crews have been working around the clock to clear the roadway, a major north south artery that carries about 100,000 vehicles through the Central Coast each day. About 75 people are assigned to the project.

The cleanup is focused on what CalTrans calls "dewatering"—using pumps to suck up the mud and rainwater. Once all the mud and debris is removed, the pavement and overpasses must be evaluated for structural safety, and then signs and guardrails reinstalled and lines repainted.

By Monday, "we'll have a better understanding of when the freeway will be open and when people can expect to drive it again," Shivers said.

In addition to the 101, many local roads are blocked. Santa Barbara City Fire Chief Pat McElroy said the big push on Saturday was to clean roads in the Santa Barbara and Montecito areas in order to improve vehicular access.

"As it stands, we're still having to go in on foot in many areas," he said.

State Route 192, which cuts across the foothills, is also unsafe in places, and officials are trying to establish an alternative route as soon as possible.

With the 101 closed, hundreds of people have taken to traveling the coast by boat. Two sightseeing companies, Island Packers in Ventura and Condor Express in Santa Barbara, have worked together to turn their vessels into a ferry service between the cities.

Tickets on the Condor Express, a 75-foot catamaran that normally takes tourists whale watching, were in high demand last week, with many trips packed with the maximum 127 passengers, assistant manager Katie Fitts said.

The 90-minute trip over the water was significantly shorter than the more than four-hour detour on the 5 Freeway, and ferry passengers included firefighters, city workers and medical personnel from Cottage Hospital, she said.

"There are people trying to get to their families that have been struck by this tragedy and people trying to get to work... surgeons and nurses," Fitts said.

Ticket sales fell off Saturday after Amtrak restarted Surfliner and Coast Starlight service between Santa Barbara and Oxnard. The train trip between Ventura and Santa Barbara normally takes about 45 minutes. Trains were delayed two hours Saturday.

A spokeswoman said the delay "was due to adding capacity to accommodate an increase of customers."

Meanwhile, business owners in Solvang—a favorite tourist stop of mostly western European-style hotels, bakeries and ranches just north of Santa Barbara—were in a near panic on Saturday as they watched sales revenues shrink to less than half of normal. For them, closing Highway 101 seemed the equivalent of splitting the state in half.

Some hotels were even encouraging patrons from their largest market—the Los Angeles area—not to attempt the trip, which currently requires detours of up to 10 hours. Cancellations had become routine as word spread of the closure, and some businesses and supermarkets had either reduced or halted restocking of inventories because they were not needed.

One of the region's most famous resorts, San Ysidro Ranch north of Montecito, sustained extensive damage in the mudslides, McElroy said Saturday. The luxury hotel, which has counted Audrey Hepburn, Winston Churchill and honeymooners John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy as guests, is edged by a creek that became a torrent of boulders, toppled trees and muck.

Contractors and crews using earthmovers and dump trucks were streaming into the property Saturday morning. Elroy said many key structures on the property remained standing.

About noon Saturday, more than four dozen Los Angeles County firefighters armed with shovels, pickaxes, chain saws and heavy-duty dumpsters descended on a debris-strewn location in the heart of the ranch property on a special mission: to rescue one of the oldest and most important adobe structures in Southern California.

The San Ysidro Adobe was inundated with water and mud the consistency of peanut butter. A bronze plaque on the devastated low-slung building said it was "built in 1825, and from 1868 to 1878."