Frustration mounts for mudslide-ravaged California town known for luxury and calm

Frustrations and dark discoveries mounted Saturday for a California town ravaged by a deadly and destructive mudslide.

Most of the people of Montecito, which has a population of about 9,000 and is usually known for its serenity and luxury, were under orders to stay out of town as gas and power were expected to be shut off Saturday for repairs.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown on Thursday expanded what was known as the public safety exclusion zone to incorporate most of the town. That meant even those who had stayed behind would have to leave and those who entered the zone would be subject to arrest.

Dramatic video shows floodwaters hitting Montecito, Calif.

7 years ago

Duration 1:06

California mudslides have caused multiple deaths, wide destruction

"It is a little frustrating," said Sarah Ettman, whose home was undamaged and whose section of town still had gas and electricity. "It's martial law here, basically."

However, with most utilities about to be cut off and sewage running into the nearby creek, she decided to heed the order to leave.

"I mean you're losing all your basic health and sanitation services," she said. "When those go down, you have to leave."

It was another difficult turn for those living in the Southern California town that has been subject to repeated evacuation orders in recent weeks, first because of a monster wildfire last month, then because of downpours and mudslides.

Cia Monroe said her family was lucky their home wasn't ruined and they were all healthy and safe, though her daughter lost one of her best friends.

• Researchers 'searching for a miracle' in California mudslides

But Monroe said it was stressful after evacuating three times during the wildfire to be packing up a fourth time. A family had offered them a room to stay overnight, but then they were looking at spending up to $3,000 a week for a hotel.

"Where do you go when you're a family of four and you don't have a second house?" Monroe asked, noting that some residents have third and fourth homes. "Financially that's a burden."

While Montecito is best known as a getaway for the rich and famous -- the median home price among current listings is more than $4 million US there are also working families living in modest houses and apartments.

More than 2,000workers taking part in the search and cleanup effort flooded into the town.

A backhoe scooped up mud and rocks around buckled and flattened homes, while bulldozers cleared roads of tangled trees, muck and boulders. Tanker trucks were being used to haul off floodwaters sucked up from U.S. Highway 101, the crippled coastal route connecting Santa Barbara to Ventura.

Brown said the recovery effort has been hindered by residents who had stayed behind or tried to check on damage in neighbourhoods where homes were levelled and car-size boulders blocked roads and littered properties.

Rescuers were busy probing thick muck, swollen creeks and tangled trees with poles in search of seven missing people while dogs sniffed for bodies.

A crew found the body of the 18th victim, Joseph Bleckel, 87, before noon in his home near Romero Canyon, Brown said. It was the first death discovered since Wednesday.

The cause of Bleckel's death wasn't announced, but all other victims died from multiple traumatic injuries due to a flash flood and mudslides.

Later Saturday, Brown said a 19th victim had been found and named her asMorgan Corey, 25. Her 12-year-old sister Sawyer had previouslybeen discovered dead after their home was swept away this week.

Another person who had been on the list of missing, 62-year-old Delbert Weltzin, was found alive and well, Brown said without elaborating on the circumstances.

The list of five remaining missing people includesFabiola Benitez, the mother of Jonathan Benitez, a 10-year-old killed in the flooding.

Benitez lived with her sister-in-law, Marilyn Ramos, 27, who was asleep with her daughter, Kaelly, 3, when mud crashed through their Montecito rental home, carrying both to their deaths.

"My sister was such a good person, she only thought of others to the point that she would cry with you when you were hurt or sick," said Ramos's sister, Jennifer Ramos, pausing to sob for several seconds.

The husbands of both women and the two-year-old son of Fabiola Benitezwere hospitalized with injuries, Ramos said.

Drenching rains that unleashed the deadly torrents managed to finally contain the largest wildfire in state history, which burned for weeks above Montecito and stripped the steep hills of vegetation, making it prone to mudslides. The U.S. Forest Service announced Friday that the fire that burned 1,140 square kilometreswas fully contained.

In related news,the San Ysidro Ranch,a five-star resort near Santa Barbara that sits in Montecitofoothills, and iswhere President John F.Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline Kennedy honeymooned, has been severelydamaged by the mudslides.

Officials have yet to fully assess the damage at the ranch,which sits on 202 hectaresin the foothills of the Los Padres
National Forest.

"It looks like a war zone. It looks like the place just gotbombed," U.S. Congressman Salud Carbajal, a Democrat
representing Santa Barbara County, told Reuters while visitingthe site on Friday.

The resort was not accepting reservations until at leastAugust, according to Cheyanna Rudd, a booking agent for anoutside company used by San Ysidro, but Maxine Rutledge, theresort manager, disputed the timeline.

She declined to provide further details on when the propertywould reopen, and said owner Ty Warner, the Beanie Babiesbillionaire who bought the place in 2000, did not have animmediate comment.

Franciscan monks also stayed on the property in the late 1700sand it served as a citrus ranch in the 1800s before opening toguests in 1893, according to a history on the ranch's website.

The Academy Awarding-winning actor Ronald Colman took overthe ranch in the 1930s and it became a haunt of Hollywood starsfrom Audrey Hepburn to Groucho Marx.

Actors Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier married there and John and Jackie Kennedyhoneymooned there before he became U.S. president.