Very sad CA mudslide story......

[Miss Mary]

So many sad stories of late, but this one just breaks my heart. Imagine going out for ice cream and coming back to find your entire family all gone. My heart aches for this man:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/01/12/c ... index.html

Four more bodies pulled from mudslide

Death toll 10; as many as 13 still missing in California disaster

Wednesday, January 12, 2005 Posted: 11:38 AM EST (1638 GMT)

LA CONCHITA, California (CNN) -- Rescue crews early Wednesday pulled the bodies of a mother and her three daughters from debris in La Conchita, California, making the death toll from Monday's mudslide to 10, officials said.

An official with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department said the mother and daughters of the Wallet family were at their home when the mudslide hit. The father had gone out to get ice cream, the official said.

As many as 13 people were still missing after the slide, which brought down tons of mud, sand and debris and covered or moved more than a dozen homes in the town north of Los Angeles.

Ventura County sheriff's deputies are expected to distribute a list of the missing to try to eliminate people who weren't in the area at the time of the disaster.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was planning to tour the area Wednesday, both on the ground and by air, officials said.

More than 600 rescue personnel from about 20 different agencies are searching for survivors, concentrating on a 30-foot mound of mud that buried 15 homes.

Some rescue workers are still hopeful they may find other victims alive in the mud.

"The rescue teams are going in, they're finding voids still in the rubble pile that we believe are large enough that somebody could be in. As long as we're seeing that, then we hold out hope," Ventura County Fire Chief Bob Roper told CNN's "American Morning."

Monday night, firefighter Mark Pina helped pull a woman alive from the rubble of her home, where she was found in such a space.

"When we got to her, it was about two foot by two foot by two foot -- it was a little box," Pina told CNN. "And she was just in that little void space."

Cadaver dogs and dogs trained to find survivors were aiding in the search. Most of the rescuers were using their hands to dig through the mud. Rescuers were also using listening devices to try to detect any signs of life beneath the rubble, although no sounds of life have been heard since 6 a.m. Tuesday (9 a.m. ET).

At the end of the day Wednesday, officials will meet and decide whether Thursday's operations should become recovery operations, instead of rescue.

Ten people have been pulled out alive, eight of whom were transported to hospitals. Two of those were in critical condition, Roper said.

Roper sought to end rumors that authorities knew in advance that the mudslide was going to occur Monday afternoon. He said sensors on the mountainside detected nothing before the bluff came crashing down onto the town.

"If we did, we would have ordered the evacuations," he said.

Roper said media reports that the town was being evacuated at the time of the mudslide were wrong. He said authorities were evacuating stranded motorists on a nearby highway where flooding was occurring, an incident that had nothing to do with the mudslide.

Resident Dena Hayess said she had been taking pictures of smaller mudslides earlier Monday on a freeway near the town and had just gotten back to her house when the major mudslide hit.

"I was sitting on my porch on the phone, when I felt the ground shaking, and I peeked around the corner and saw a house sliding by," she told CNN.

In 1995, La Conchita was hit by another large mudslide that caused heavy damage. Afterward, a barrier wall was built to help protect the town, but the wall appeared to have been no match for Monday's mudslide.

[Stephanie]

That poor man! He'll never be the same again!

[Miss Mary]

Stephanie - I know! I heard he immediately began searching, digging thru the mud with his bare hands. Just look at his photo and you can see raw grief. What a tragedy, all the way around. For other families too.

Is anywhere in the US safe?

Mary

[Miss Mary]

Some good news in this tragic story, the man who lost his wife and 3 young children in the mudslide, has a 16 year old daughter who was in Ventura, California at the time.

So he hasn't lost his entire family. If there is anything good to come out of a tragedy like this, this was it. My heart just aches for him though:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/12/mudsli ... index.html

Mary