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Website Article: Wonderopolis, What Causes Mudslides? | Find out more about mudslides & try an experiment.
Website Article: Weather Wiz Kids, Landslide Questions | Learn lots of fascinating facts about mudslides.
Website Article: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Landslides and Mudslides Factsheet | What do you do before, during & after mudslides?
Read the script:
CALIFORNIANS HAVEN’T GOTTEN A BREAK FROM NATURAL DISASTERS WITH THE NEW YEAR. BEFORE OUR BREAK WE KEPT YOU UP TO DATE ABOUT WILDFIRES THAT WERE SCORCHING THE GOLDEN STATE.
NOW THE LAND -- LEFT BARE OF VEGETATION -- HAS BECOME A MUDDY MESS.
WITHOUT ROOTS TO KEEP THE LAND IN PLACE, DOWNPOURS IN MONTECITO, A CITY JUST NORTH OF LOS ANGELES, RESULTED IN MUD AND ‘BOULDERS’ - SLIDING DOWN STEEP HILLS INTO HOMES AND HIGHWAYS.
REPORTER JOHN PALMINTERI HAS DETAILS.
JOHN: IT WAS CALLED CATASTROPHIC.
CHRISTINE SAUNDERS/RESIDENT
"...SO LOUD IT WAS A CONSTANT ROAR."
LOSS OF LIFE, PROPERTY DESTRUCTION AND THE SHOCKING CHANGE IN THE MONTECITO COMMUNITY HAPPENED IN LESS THAN TWO HOURS.
RAINFALL IMPACTS CAME HARDER AND FASTER THAN MANY PEOPLE EXPECTED AND THOSE WHO WERE HERE WERE IN HARMS WAY.
LINDA HAMILTON/RESIDENT: "...I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BUT THE WATER THE MUD, THE CREEK BROKE UP HERE."
HAL SAUNDERS/RESIDENT: "I AM JUST STUNNED, ABSOLUTELY STUNNED."
THE SCENE AT HOT SPRINGS AND OLIVE MILL WAS UNRECOGNIZABLE. HOMES THAT WERE BEHIND LARGE WALLS AND SHRUBS WERE RIPPED FROM THEIR FOUNDATIONS AND BROKEN INTO SPLINTERS.
POWER POLES WERE SNAPPED....LINES WERE TWISTED UP AND LEAKING GAS WAS SPEWED OUT.
GIANT BOULDERS NO ONE EVER THOUGHT WOULD ROLL THIS WAY.... CAME CRASHING THROUGH HITTING HOMES LIKE IT WAS A BOWLING LANE.
MOS: “….”
IT WAS EMOTIONAL, TRAGIC AND A LIVING NIGHTMARE.
AS DESTRUCTIVE AS THIS SITE WAS, IT WAS ONLY ONE OF MANY LOCATIONS THAT WERE SWAMPED BY RAGING WATER, MUD AND OUT OF CONTROL THOMAS FIRE DEBRIS.
THROUGHOUT THE MONTECITO HILLS SIMILAR LOCATIONS WITH MUD COVERED ROADS, BROKEN UP HOMES AND NEWLY CARVED WATERWAYS WERE REPORTED IN ONE OF THE MOST EXPENSIVE COMMUNITIES IN AMERICA.