00:00:00
It sounded like the earth being ripped apart, just violently being ripped apart.
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And the windows were shaking, the floor was vibrating, and it had a roar. It was just, get everyone and get out.
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It just went so fast! It devoured California's perfect paradise. A bunch of water came down and boulders, and it swept my vehicle down.
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The monster mudslide that roared down the mountain. Get out of your bed! Go, go!
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I heard the most horrendous kind of a, oh. I see the garage getting taken apart.
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This huge wall of mud, and it's just coming down fast. It was on top of us. It was on top of the whole neighborhood.
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Unstoppable. There's nothing I could do. I want to get out and save my children.
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Unbelievable. I pray for everyone here. My first thought was, we're walking throughout this.
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You're powerless. You can't do anything against it. Inside the mudslide. There are people that needed help, had to keep going.
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You feel that despair right away. I'm sorry. It's not coming back. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline.
00:01:16
Here's Keith Morrison with No Way Out. It happened in the middle of the night. January 9th 2018. Pelting just slamming our ceiling heavy rain. Some got out but
00:01:36
many stayed behind. Guys I don't know what this is. First an explosion and then it
00:01:43
all came down. The flash floods right there get out of here go oh my god mom Hours later, when the morning sun broke through the clouds, some had survived.
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Others had not. And then I called the home line a couple of times and everything went to hoist mail.
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And their beloved town, unrecognizable. Catastrophic. Absolutely catastrophic. Montecito, California, a town plucked right out of a storybook.
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It's beautiful. Aesthetically, it's like shockingly beautiful. It is. Our street is beautiful.
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Our mountain is beautiful. Maria Ice and her family have lived here since 2010. And your husband is the Montecito for Life sort of guy, right?
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Yes, born and raised. We live in the house he grew up in. After Chris Ice's mother died,
00:02:44
he, Maria, and their three kids moved into his childhood home to help his aging father, a retired nuclear physicist.
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Well, he's an absent-minded professor. He's 94. He's a character. And physically, he's really strong, and he hikes up and down. We live in a place where you hike.
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Do they ever, on trails that lead to feathery waterfalls, part of the magic that's drawn so many to Montecito?
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Families like the Farrells. I've traveled all over the world, and I love coming home.
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Marco Farrell moved back in with his parents, Jeff and Gabrielle. It's just kind of a good time for me to help them into the next phase, you know, and getting older.
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We're all getting older, so. Well, tell me about it. His dad, an Olympian who won gold in the 1960 Olympics in swim relays.
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And my mom's an incredible cook and an incredible gardener, and it's fun to learn how to cook.
00:03:48
and the helper in the garden. This is priceless time. I'm really blessed. Joey and Angelina Cordero and their kids felt the same way.
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Joey's a chef with a two-minute commute to work. From the time we moved there, it just felt like we were on vacation.
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It was just perfect. The perfect, happy, blessed lifestyle. As it was for this couple who built their lives in Montecito,
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Dita Landy and Jeff Gray. Jeff, a doctor of physical therapy, started his own company that tests shoes.
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Dina found work with a local real estate legend named Rebecca Riskin. She's kind of famous.
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Here's Rebecca in her company's promotional video. I'm just telling you what it's like living here.
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Dina eventually got her real estate license and became Rebecca's business partner.
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I think that what I get to do is I get to help people find their little piece of paradise here.
00:04:42
Paradise, yes. But up here in the mountains, dry brush, years of drought. Especially on a windy day, you think, man, oh, man, if somebody set a match up there, this whole thing would go up in two seconds.
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Nah, you don't have to think of it like that. There's natural things that can happen pretty much anywhere.
00:05:02
You don't spend every day thinking about that stuff. Not that is until December 2017
00:05:08
When the Thomas fire Burned its way into Santa Barbara County Where beautiful Montecito sits
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Fire's got about a quarter mile away That's got to be uncomfortable Super close Their cell phone set up to receive emergency alerts
00:05:23
Squawk the order Get out now We obey Dina likes to obey and I obey Dina Maria and her family
00:05:34
left too. It was getting closer and closer and closer and we started moving the cars. Like her
00:05:41
nuclear physicist father-in-law's 1956 Thunderbird. We had our wedding photos and just thinking oh my
00:05:47
gosh this is crazy we might not see our house again. Marco Farro got his parents out then decided
00:05:54
to stay and protect their home I was terrified It was fury absolute fury Thomas Fire was unlike any other fire that I been on in my 20 years fighting fire
00:06:07
Maeve Juarez is a wildland fire specialist with the Montecito Fire Department. Over the years, it seems that fires are getting bigger.
00:06:15
But this one, the worst thing she'd ever seen. During the Thomas Fire, Maeve was on duty for 23 days straight.
00:06:23
How do you keep going after that long? You just do. The Corderos fled the fire too, but all they could think about was getting back home.
00:06:33
Angelina had given birth just four weeks before. Every day we were just watching the news.
00:06:38
A few days before Christmas, the all clear went out. Within the hour, we were driving back home.
00:06:44
We were so excited. Are you happy to be home? Yeah! So were they all. This morning was a happy day for evacuees returning home after nearly two weeks away.
00:06:56
But a few days later, Marco Faro got into his car and headed up to the scorched earth where the great fire had been defeated
00:07:03
and realized it was bad, very bad. I couldn't recognize any of the mountains. Seeing boulders the size of school buses with nothing holding them back and way up on the top of the ridges, I mean, it's just terrifying.
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We had to see. That's our backyard. And so we hiked through the most surreal ash forest.
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You know, the trees were all burnt. A lot of trees were down. The whole mountain was just soft.
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Maria and her husband, Chris, worried what would happen if it rained. When we come back, disaster strikes again.
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I saw the sky glow and I had said something strange is happening. It was a big, huge mushroom fire above our neighborhood.
00:07:52
It was unreal, like a nuclear bomb went off. By Christmas, the Thomas Fire had entered history,
00:08:14
California's biggest wildfire. And it was still burning. But here in Montecito, firefighters had battled it to a standstill.
00:08:23
And that's why we only lost 10 houses. We should have lost a lot more, but for a lot of brave firefighters.
00:08:29
Early in the new year, Maeve Juarez was looking forward finally to a real rest. And this big rainstorm was coming, and I thought, oh, this is great.
00:08:38
It's going to be the end of fire season, and we're all going to get some time off.
00:08:41
She knew, of course, that the hillsides were now thick beds of black ash prone to flash floods.
00:08:49
So before she could go on vacation, Maeve helped homeowners in Montecito fill sandbags just in case.
00:08:57
Joey Cardero, about to get in line for sandbags, phoned his wife. I was like, you know what, there's a line a mile long. Do we really need them?
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And she's like, you know, I don't think it's going to rain. It was Monday, January 8th.
00:09:09
Of course, crews hoping for the best tonight and preparing for the worst. The county had issued mandatory evacuation warnings in some areas, but not in theirs.
00:09:19
So they stayed put. So did Maria Ice, even though... There was no doubt that we were in a mandatory evacuation.
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We got the message. But we didn't really want to leave again. And my father-in-law said he wasn't going to leave.
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And my son had the flu. And my husband's like, we don't need to leave. I'm going to sandbag. We'll be fine.
00:09:40
But just in case, Maria's two older daughters spent the night with friends closer to school.
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Maria went to work, as usual. She's a bartender at a restaurant a few miles away.
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Everyone at work, we were joking, where's this big rain? And I left work around 11, I think. No rain.
00:09:59
Marco Farrell stayed home, too. This time, his parents stayed with him. Did you consider evacuating?
00:10:06
We talked about it, but we all had evacuation fatigue. Even though Marco knew all about the unusual weather patterns here,
00:10:13
runs a Facebook page about it. The storms come in from the southeast and they slam into our mountains,
00:10:19
so we'll actually squeeze out more moisture over Montecito. That is enough to really cause problems.
00:10:25
So it doesn't rain that often here, but when it does rain, it's more intense. Yes.
00:10:29
That evening, he and his parents went to dinner, and on their way home, they picked up 20 more sandbags.
00:10:35
just in case. Dina and Jeff, true to form, weren't taking any chances. We received an evacuation notice.
00:10:45
And the Dina rule is, out we go. Out we go. Where to go? Dina's business partner, Rebecca Riskin,
00:10:52
lived in a less threatened area half a mile away. So? Called her that afternoon and said,
00:10:58
is that guest house still available? And she said, absolutely. We felt safe. We felt very safe.
00:11:04
That's why we stayed there. Just the two of you and... Our dog, Hank. Our dog, Hank.
00:11:10
Yeah. Hank, their eight-year-old lab mix, rescued from a shelter. So he goes with you everywhere.
00:11:18
He's my partner in crime. The evening ticked by. The big storm didn't come. Dina texted her friend, Rebecca.
00:11:28
Thank you so much. So comfortable here. We got ready for bed. and set our alarms and off to sleep we went.
00:11:37
But Maeve, on standby at the fire station, couldn't sleep. So around midnight, I rolled up my sleeping bag and all of my stuff
00:11:44
and decided to go drive around. And then, 3.41, here it came. Maeve was parked on a bridge near the famous resort San Ysidro Ranch I took a video with my phone of the rain coming down I thought man it really heavy She decided to go check on a family she had helped earlier in the day
00:12:06
Probably not even 65 seconds later is when I saw the sky glow. A huge explosion.
00:12:16
The bridge on which she'd been parked was suddenly gone. Seemed like the whole world was on fire.
00:12:22
It's like the beginning of Armageddon or something. It was, and I had sent a text message to the chief and said something strange is happening.
00:12:28
Maria, awakened by the rain, went outside and... We saw the sky light up like daytime. I mean, it was just stunning.
00:12:36
Could you hear this explosion? We heard it. We felt it. We could see it. It was a big, huge mushroom fire above our neighborhood.
00:12:47
You couldn't tell where it came from. You didn't know what it was. It was unreal.
00:12:52
Otherworldly somehow. Yes. Like a nuclear bomb went off. That's flames. Coming up.
00:13:00
I heard the most horrendous sound of a kind of a... A roar from the mountaintop.
00:13:07
And a monster is upon them. Get out of here. Get out of here. Go, go, go. I see the garage getting taken apart.
00:13:15
This huge wall of mud is just coming down fast. You're powerless. When Dateline continues.
00:13:24
Hello, we're on fire. We're entirely on fire. Okay, I need you to hold on for the fire department. Don't hang up.
00:13:40
Montecito firefighter Mae Juarez was already there, alone, staring at the immense fireball when no warning.
00:13:47
A bunch of water came down and boulders and stuff, and it swept my vehicle down.
00:13:53
The fire still looming above, suddenly she was caught in the middle of the flash flood.
00:13:58
And I lost control of the vehicle because there was so much water pushing me down the road.
00:14:04
She managed to wrestle her truck off the road. She stumbled on, on foot. I slipped a little bit.
00:14:11
Water was probably waist deep, so it fried the radio. So I ran back to the truck and grabbed another radio.
00:14:18
She called it in and made her way towards the fire. Hi! I could see the panic in people's eyes, and that's kind of at that moment when I realized that many people hadn't evacuated.
00:14:29
Just a few blocks from Maeve, where Maria Ice and her family, seconds after they saw the explosion, they heard the flash flood bearing down.
00:14:38
It sounded like the earth being ripped apart, just violently being ripped apart, like an earthquake, and just coming down the mountain.
00:14:46
and the windows were shaking and the floor was vibrating and it had a roar. More than a flood, all that loose stuff she and her husband saw on their hike after the fire
00:14:59
was now pouring into their home. I was screaming for my son to wake up and he got up and he came running down the hallway.
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He had no shirt, no shoes. He was running through mud, splattering on him. Twelve-year-old Dino, sick with the flu.
00:15:15
My only concern was just getting out alive with my son. But as she and her son ran for the car, her husband, Chris, ran back in where his father and their dogs were trapped.
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I for sure thought he wasn't going to make it. 911, what are you reporting? The house across the street from us blew up.
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There's a huge, huge, like a whole house blew up. It was my husband. I left my husband there.
00:15:40
He's trying to get his dad out. No choice now. Maria drove away through the pouring rain. Dino and his fever haze watched from the backseat.
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She kept on looking at the fire, then looking at me, and then looking up the road, and then
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she was just losing it. I was hysterical. I mean, I was screaming. Like, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry
00:16:00
that I'm putting you through this because I should have evacuated him. About two miles away,
00:16:07
Marco Farrell was live on Facebook. Guys, I don't know what this is. This is a huge orange glow.
00:16:12
the whole sky is lit up. I don't know what it is. I'm going to go try to find it.
00:16:18
Like something alien. Yeah. I literally, in my head, thought it was an alien landing.
00:16:24
And that's when he heard it, the thing that was coming. I heard the most horrendous,
00:16:30
loud, but really far away sound of a kind of a, and I knew instantly. I knew instantly what was happening.
00:16:41
He ran home to alert his parents. And I'm looking back, and I see headlights coming.
00:16:47
It was a police vehicle. We made eye contact from about here, and he just had this big wide eye, and he grabbed his mic.
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Get out of here! Get out of here! Go! Go! Go! So the monster that was chasing them was going to get me.
00:17:03
Marco made it to his driveway. Camera phone recording. The flash flies right there!
00:17:08
Oh my God, Mom! Close the door! Get ready to go out. Wake Dad up. Marco's dad, Jeff, didn't have his hearing aids on.
00:17:22
Wake up! He's happily asleep. Mom's yelling at him. He doesn't wake up. Finally, she hits his leg. He wakes up.
00:17:30
By then, the mud was on them, filling their house. It's up to the counter over there.
00:17:36
there's nothing I could do I'm sorry you guys sorry that he didn't force his parents to evacuate
00:17:43
at that point I really didn't know if we would survive it was the fireball that woke up Dina and Jeff
00:17:53
as bright as midday and because of our recent experience your first thought is fire we gotta get the heck out of here Quickly they dressed opened the door And I had my phone going because I wanted to be able to videotape where the fire was
00:18:08
And I look over, and I don't see our cars. And I see the garage getting taken apart by this river of water.
00:18:16
And I just see this huge wall of mud coming. It's like mud with sticks and trees in it, and it's just coming down fast.
00:18:25
How fast? It's like faster than you think anything earthwise should be moving. It's not even like an ocean wave.
00:18:32
It was just so, so much mass moving faster than you think things should. He shut the door.
00:18:41
You're powerless. You can't do anything against it. And so I yelled to Dina and Hank to get on the bed,
00:18:46
and I jumped on the counter that was right there. And within seconds, the mud's up to the countertop.
00:18:51
What happens in here one night? I wish I had words. I can't explain it. But what about Dina's friend, Rebecca, sleeping in the main house with her husband and daughter?
00:19:04
Were they okay? I called her and I called her husband and I called them twice. And then I called the home line a couple of times and everything went to voicemail.
00:19:13
Nobody picked up? Nobody picked up. Dina and Jeff knew they needed to get to the roof.
00:19:19
They tried to break a skylight. Impossible. But there was a window near the kitchen.
00:19:25
And out that window, there was actually a car that had come down from the street
00:19:30
and wedged itself up against the guest house. This is really weird. Yeah. I say it's divine intervention.
00:19:39
They clambered out the window, onto the floating car, then up to the roof. Rain coming down, sky bright orange.
00:19:47
Dina, Jeff, and Hank the dog huddled by the chimney top. And that's when they realized they were not alone.
00:19:56
Coming up. It's just going so fast. Ferocious and fierce, the river of mud keeps rising.
00:20:04
It was like a river raft with your kids, but it was our bed. My first thought was, we're walking to our desk.
00:20:11
God, I pray for everyone here. I'm sorry. It's not coming back. It was the pounding rain and orange sky
00:20:33
that jolted the town of Montecito in the middle of the night. Help me! Help! Causing confusion everywhere.
00:20:41
That's all trees coming down the driveway. What they were afraid of is exactly happening.
00:20:46
Holy s**t. And the destruction was unimaginable. Oh no, the road's completely gone.
00:20:55
If you hear rumbling, run. I just was really focused on trying to control what I could control in that moment,
00:21:03
and that was helping people and getting them to safety. Maeve learned from her crew that the orange glow in the sky was a fire that started
00:21:10
when boulders pushed by the rain ruptured a gas line. Several homes were in flames.
00:21:16
Her crew soon found two homeowners with severe burns. and Maeve called for an ambulance to meet them.
00:21:22
And that's when it hit her. Meet where? I realized that the neighborhood had been swept away
00:21:30
and I was confused for a moment, wondering where the houses went to my right. And so I thought, okay, I need to go left.
00:21:40
So I went left to try to get them out the other way and we were cut off on that side.
00:21:46
A helicopter would be the only way out. The Coast Guard agreed to power through the storm.
00:21:51
Meanwhile, the calls for help kept coming from all over Montecito as the mud kept roaring through.
00:21:58
It's just going so fast. Hold on. Honey, take a deep breath. I understand it's moving quickly, okay?
00:22:04
It's just coming up high. About a mile south of Maeve, the Corderos, the family of five with a brand new baby,
00:22:12
woke up just moments before the mudslide came crashing through their home. The force pushed the baby's crib right out the bedroom door.
00:22:20
And that crib is not meant to go through the world. No, and it just was in pieces. It was horrible.
00:22:27
Just seconds before the mud took the baby's crib apart, Angelina grabbed her newborn and the other two kids and climbed on the bed.
00:22:34
It was like a river raft with your kids, but it was our bed. I had my hand on the ceiling to hold the bed down because it was just kind of pushing up.
00:22:42
And I was just holding the children and praying to God. I didn't know if the water was just going to keep coming through, so I thought we should get to the attic.
00:22:51
So, one by one, Joey carried each of them through the mud, down the hallway, and up a trap door that led to the attic.
00:22:59
I called 911. I'm sorry. All circuits are busy now. And to hear the busy signal, I was devastated.
00:23:10
And so, up in the attic, they waited for what they did not know. About a mile away at Marco Faro's house, his father Jeff had just been yanked from a deep sleep.
00:23:21
I had no idea what was going on except that I had been awakened violently. No idea his house was filling with mud.
00:23:29
This is literally as high as the kitchen counters. And God, I pray for everyone here.
00:23:40
And so the mud was already up to my hip. Marcos' mom, Gabrielle, watched as he pried open the back door
00:23:52
and mud surged into her prized garden. But at least it was now flowing out of the house.
00:24:00
It's already gone down six inches. Gabrielle stood in a hallway with Jeff and their three-legged dog Lucas and wept.
00:24:09
The four most important things that we own are right here, Mom. We are safe. That's what's important.
00:24:18
Stay, Lucas. Lucas, stay. While trying to comfort his parents, Marco was desperately trying to figure a way out.
00:24:26
And Marco said, all right, we're going to go out from the front. And my first thought was, we're walking to our death.
00:24:35
But they agreed to try. Gabrielle held on to her son as he helped her walk through the mud and debris.
00:24:42
And then he said, Mom, we're alive. I said, yeah. He said, Mom, say it. I said, we're alive.
00:24:53
And he said, Mom, say it louder. I'm sorry It's not coming back Mom said louder Meanwhile, Jeff and Dina
00:25:12
Clinging to the rooftop chimney of Rebecca Riskin's guest house Heard a voice It was Rebecca's daughter in the main house
00:25:19
She was scared She was on the couch in the living room And mud had come through there
00:25:26
And then, out of the dark, Jeff heard another voice. And they're like, I'm very, very cold. I'm getting colder.
00:25:33
I have a really badly broken leg. I can't move. I need help. Can you get me a blanket?
00:25:39
Jeff called 911, then shouted to the injured man. I said, OK, called 911. What's your name? He goes, Jeff, it's Ken.
00:25:47
Ken, their friend and the husband of Dina's business partner, Rebecca. And that's when he said, I was swept out of the house.
00:25:56
I collided with the tree, and that's what broke my leg, but it kept me from going farther in the mudslide.
00:26:02
And then he said, I saw Rebecca go down in the mudslide. Jeff did not tell Dina what he had just learned.
00:26:09
And then out of the dark, someone else called out. More rain coming. Brace yourself.
00:26:15
That's not a good thing to hear. No. No. So he was, you got us some blankets and some pillows to try and create a shelter.
00:26:22
And then after that, his next mission was to get blankets over to Ken and to get him warm.
00:26:29
But getting to Ken wasn't easy. They on a roof, he in a tree, nothing but mud and debris between them.
00:26:37
My legs were already cut up and bleeding all over the place. At one point I got to the neighbor's garage and it starts to like collapse under the weight of me just going on it.
00:26:45
At that point, I realized I had to be careful. He slowly picked his way through the debris toward Ken.
00:26:52
I maybe went 100, 150 yards, and it took about 45 minutes to get to him. Ken did not look good.
00:26:59
His face is blue, his lips are purple, and I can see his leg is severely broken.
00:27:06
And my first thought is, I think he's close to dying. Coming up, desperate for a rescue.
00:27:14
Why is it taking so long? This is not good. And rescuers desperate too, fighting the elements, the odds, the clock.
00:27:24
We all just wanted to get over there. It was completely unrecognizable. When Dateline continues.
00:27:30
When Maria Ice jumped in her car with her son Dino, she was intent on escaping the ball of fire above them.
00:27:48
No idea of the real danger ahead. The gentle creek that ran next to their home was now a river of mud
00:27:56
spilling over into the street. And in it? Big boulders, like this, you know, big.
00:28:01
Ones you can't drive over. Blocking the whole road. Blocking the whole road, stuck.
00:28:06
And to the right I saw a car, and the wheels of the car weren't really making contact with the ground.
00:28:13
It was kind of teetering a little, and the door was open It was her neighbor And he sees me coming and then he just starts trying to move boulders and things out of my way so I can get through As soon as he kind of got one big rock out of the way I just punched it and just went like four driving over huge trees and boulders
00:28:34
We got to the other side of that dam, and then he screamed at me. I'm coming. Here, I need to get in your car.
00:28:40
So he jumps in my car and then we took off down Park Lane, which was also a big, roaring river.
00:28:47
And somehow they ended up here, at this golf course about a mile away, seemingly untouched by the mud flow.
00:28:56
Once we were parked in that place, my mom called my dad. Last time they saw him, he was still at home with Grandpa.
00:29:03
He didn't pick up. He didn't pick up. That's not a good feeling. Yeah, not at all.
00:29:07
And our dogs and my grandpa and my house, everything. We just thought it was all gone.
00:29:13
But finally, Maria's husband Chris answered the phone. Wow, she made it. She made it, you know.
00:29:19
Chris had escaped with his father and the dogs, too, and now discovered they'd ended up at the same golf course as Maria and Dino.
00:29:28
It just made me feel comfort that she was alive and my son was there, too, and it was a big relief.
00:29:33
And when they finally saw each other again... He just looked... He was dead. His eyes just looked glossy and lost.
00:29:42
Have you ever seen him like that before? No, I don't think I have. Not that look.
00:29:48
About two miles away, clinging to a ravaged hedge, Gabrielle kept repeating her son's mantra.
00:29:55
We're alive. We're alive. And we saw headlights. And you know what goes through your mind?
00:30:02
We will make it. Somebody can see us. It was a fire truck. And I flagged them down and told them,
00:30:10
and I had three plus a three-legged dog, and we needed evacuation. And they said, sure, and that was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard.
00:30:18
The fire truck plowed through the mud and carried the ferals to safety, where NBC station KSBY found them and their dog, Lucas, covered in mud.
00:30:28
They dropped us here. Because they had to go and rescue other people. Yeah. Hello, this is Angelina Cordero calling from San Leandro Lane.
00:30:38
Meanwhile, still trapped in the attic with her family, Angelina finally got through to 911.
00:30:44
The house is completely filled. Okay, has the water breached the attic? No, but it's very scary.
00:30:52
When the dispatcher was saying, we're on our way, they're trying to get to you, I was just thinking, like, why is it taking so long? This is not good.
00:31:02
Around 7 o'clock in the morning, they peeked through one of the vents up in the attic
00:31:06
and saw why help hadn't arrived. It's just water, as far as I can see, just water and debris.
00:31:13
I just couldn't believe what I was looking at. As the rising sun shed light on Montecito, the destruction was incomprehensible.
00:31:23
That's the bridge, right? That's what used to be the bridge. By now, Jeff had been able to grab a few blankets, a pillow, shoes, and water from a house nearby
00:31:34
to try to keep Ken with his broken leg as comfortable as possible. And then, that's when they finally heard it.
00:31:42
Choppers overhead. But the helicopters would circle a couple of times and then leave.
00:31:47
What's that like? Awful. Like the hope evaporates so fast. Here's who was up there.
00:31:53
this trio from the Santa Barbara County Air Support Unit. We would have turned down the mission if it was any other day.
00:32:01
They launched at 6.30 in the morning, struggling through the torrential rain, fighting to see anything.
00:32:08
We all just wanted to get over there and do whatever it took to start doing rescues.
00:32:12
Bryce Weibel was the onboard medic, Fire Captain Glenn DuPont coordinating. We had a lot of information coming in over the radios at one time.
00:32:20
They were given an address on Glen Oaks, Rebecca Riskin's home, though of course they didn't
00:32:27
know that. The address is extremely hard to use in those conditions. I grew up in this area and for me it was completely unrecognizable.
00:32:37
But as Matt Utko the pilot was orbiting they saw her This lady waving to us from the roof It was Dina and Hank the dog Glenn lowered Bryce down He could start to get his harness out for me to get in it
00:32:50
Then I said, no, that's the guy that needs to go. Dina, of course, was talking about Ken.
00:32:57
And I looked over and I said, where is this, where are you talking about? Meanwhile, above, in the helicopter.
00:33:04
The low fuel light comes on 20 minutes of flight time remaining. The clock ticking.
00:33:09
They pulled Dina into the chopper. The dog was there and we would have loved to take the dog.
00:33:14
But once we heard that there was another victim in the mud with a broken leg, that has to be postponed.
00:33:19
Fuel fast running out, they went looking for Ken and Jeff who was still with him.
00:33:24
But could they get to them before it was too late? Coming up, still trapped. All of a sudden we hear this loud thump on our house.
00:33:33
Still in jeopardy. He may have thought he was going to die there. Still clinging to hope.
00:33:39
Where was Rebecca? I thought, just because she got swept away doesn't mean that she's not alive.
00:33:44
I had to go back. Firefighters had worked night and day and stopped the worst wildfire in California history.
00:34:07
But now, as Maeve looked at the new disaster around her, she felt somehow helpless.
00:34:13
With a fire, I can bring in hotshot crews and I can bring in a helicopter and I can put retardant down and I can cut brush and I can save the house.
00:34:20
But the rain. You can't stop the water. Hundreds of people all across Montecito were trapped by the boulders and tree trunks
00:34:32
and jagged bits of stuff embedded in a sea of mud. There were the Corderos, trapped in their attic.
00:34:39
Yeah, you hear the helicopter just blazing over our house, and all of a sudden we hear this loud thump on our house.
00:34:45
And that was such a good feeling. You're so vulnerable, and then to have someone save you and your family,
00:34:51
it's the most amazing, humbling experience ever. But less than a mile away, outside Rebecca Riskin's place,
00:35:00
there was no way to access this house. It was completely cut off from any ground crews or roads or anything.
00:35:06
Fuel almost gone, a victim down below. They lowered medic Bryce into a slew of mud.
00:35:13
And that's where I found the patient that had the broken leg. It wasn't good. He was very distraught, and he was mentally in shock and physically in shock.
00:35:22
It was Ken who told his rescuers that Rebecca, his wife, had been swept away. He wasn't like a normal patient where he was chomping at the bit to get rescued out of that situation.
00:35:34
He was kind of sitting there as if he was going to potentially... He'd already given up.
00:35:39
Potentially, yeah. He may have thought he was going to die there. Well, he didn't. Not that day.
00:35:46
Not that day. One of the firefighters on Maeve's team was nearby and shot this video of Ken being airlifted.
00:35:54
It must have felt pretty good watching him go up. Yeah, it felt pretty good getting him to that point.
00:35:58
I think in my head I knew none of it was over yet. Jeff struggled through the mud back to his rooftop perch
00:36:04
and there was Hank, the dog. Feels pretty good seeing your best friend on the roof.
00:36:11
Before long, the Coast Guard lowered a line and picked up Rebecca's daughter, who by now had made it to the roof.
00:36:17
And then Jeff and Hank. Local TV station KEYT interviewed Jeff as he got off the chopper,
00:36:26
his best friend sitting right next to him. He's been a trooper. He's got his first helicopter ride.
00:36:32
Yeah, damn scary day. Back on dry land, Jeff called Dina and finally told her. Her friend, Rebecca, was gone.
00:36:45
You know, you feel that despair right away. And then at the same time, I thought, just because she got swept away, it doesn't mean that she's not alive.
00:36:55
Maeve heard about Rebecca, too. I had to go back I called her name and I couldn get very far because I not very tall and the mud was so deep And so I went back to the car and yelled her name on the loudspeaker and continued to yell her name Hours later they found Rebecca
00:37:12
body. She was 61. She gave me a friendship. She gave me life advice. She was a role model.
00:37:25
We live at the whim of the world around us, really. Yeah. I think what's so difficult about it is that it's sudden.
00:37:36
And you keep thinking, she's just going to walk through the door. She's just going to be here.
00:37:47
The final irony? Their house, the one they fled, wasn't even touched. Go figure.
00:37:55
Yeah. I almost feel a little guilty. Imagine. Yeah. This is our triage area now.
00:38:04
The pharaohs escaped with their lives, but not much else. There were dozens and dozens of palm trees.
00:38:10
I mean, this was just such a lush oasis back here. His mother's oasis. The garden meant everything to me.
00:38:19
because I dedicated many of the plants to people we have lost, family members and friends.
00:38:28
So it was like a spiritual place for me. And to see it so wounded is very, very, very painful.
00:38:37
But I will rededicate new trees and bushes to all the... the kind people who have stepped up and helped us.
00:38:56
Yes, the garden was a very fun place. Sorry. Their home is no longer habitable. Marco said the house did its job protecting us and saving our lives,
00:39:12
and it's time to move on. But leave Modicito, not a chance. Just how the Corderos feel, even though...
00:39:28
Our life has been completely turned upside down from having a perfect, happy life.
00:39:33
And then it all just gets taken away, but you have your family. Almost three weeks after the mudslide,
00:39:42
the Ice family cleared out the mud from their house, much as they could anyway. They're back home now.
00:39:49
All except for Chris's 94-year-old dad, who has since passed away. He always thought what happened in Montecito, said Chris, was a kind of, I told you so.
00:40:00
He's a very pro-climate change person. A warning his father, the scientist, offered four decades ago.
00:40:07
He's been a firm believer of that, and he feels that either there's too many people or climate change is responsible for some of these things.
00:40:16
In the end, hundreds were rescued. 22 people died, and one person remains missing.
00:40:24
It was strange to go home. When I pulled in the driveway, I just kind of sat there and thought,
00:40:29
gosh, that was a lot. What could I have done better? What could I have done differently?
00:40:39
And grateful survivors of the Montecito mudslide contemplated life among the ruins of their damaged paradise.
00:40:48
Can you go back to life in Montecito? We absolutely will. Everything that, almost everything,
00:40:55
almost everything that we love about our home is still here. Almost. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:12
That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.