Season 1, Episode 20: When Mountains Slide

[00:00:00]today on parts of hero's flash-flood said mud boulders and debris slamming into a California community destroying everything in its path a wave of mud just came roaring through the front of the house and with survivors buried in the wreckage or rescuers get to them in time plus record rainfall leaves one Oregon man trapped in a raging ravine waters coming into the passenger side window suddenly I'm in water up to here it's times like these when we need a hero to help save the day living through one natural disaster is difficult but to within a matter of weeks surreal at the end of 2017 the people of Montecito California were tortured by a devastating wildfire and then just weeks later they were pummeled by a mudslide luckily first responders were right there to save the day Moxie doe is a gorgeous suburb of Santa Barbara California it offers stunning beaches and majestic mountain ranges but in 2017 this picturesque area was devastated by a wildfire around December 4th the Thomas fire started and it grew rapidly the fire intends to be removed to nearly all the vegetation above the hill slopes of Montecito the scorched earth left in the wake of the Thomas fire would have disastrous consequences the vegetation is this protective blanket that protects the soil from erosion when that's removed by the fire the soil will be very vulnerable to rainstorms afterwards so when it rains water beads up on the hill slopes and as it runs off it begins to pick up the soil begins to collect more and more it gets bigger and bigger in the weeks following the fire Nelson try Clara of Santa Barbara search and rescue was keeping a close eye on the weather and that barren mountainside we knew based on prior experiences of fires that the chance of having some type of flood event was very very high we had people in Montecito that had been evacuated for the Thomas fire multiple times and now we were asking them to evacuate again for this storm event there with no threat of fire but unfortunately so many people were fatigued from many fire evacuations so they ignored the voluntary evacuation it's important to take any evacuation warning seriously these first responders are trained to spot potential dangers and just because it is a mandatory doesn't mean it is an extremely important in the early morning hours of January 9th the storm hit and it hit hard the National Weather Service is closely watching their weather radar and they see this band of intense precip and it's making a bull's-eye for Montecito another firefighter and I heard this sound from the Westside sounds like a thousand freight trains we like I think that's a mudslide enter 29 2000 there is a very active mudslide coming down all of the milk towards the 101 right now but this was much worse than any mudslide this was called a debris flow it's a powerful mixture of water mud boulders and even trees it was moving extremely fast picking up cars demolishing homes and destroying entire neighborhoods right there might get in the car might get in the car get in the car might get in the car debris flow was super fast faster than you can run and it'd be super deep in the case of Montecito over 20 feet deep Kim Kenton lives in Montecito and was desperately trying to get her family out when disaster struck a wave of mud just came roaring through the front of the house I all of a sudden went under the mudslide which was really like roaring rapid Kim's daughter Lauren was in a different part of the house when she was overtaken by that violent force of nature a wave of water started rushing in and I was spun around and thrown everywhere coming up trapped under tons of mud and wreckage Kim and Lauren are in the fight of their lives I heard talking and that's when I realized I had to get someone to find me but first a safety tip if you or your loved ones have been involved in a natural disaster understand that the emotional toll takes on an individual can be extremely devastating but there is hope children and older adults are more at risk so don't neglect the emotional needs of those around you everyone experiences emotions differently focus on the here and now and that you will get through this together your health and those around you is of paramount importance tomorrow will be better than today in the pre-dawn hours of January 9th 2018 a deadly mixture of mud and wreckage smashed into the community of Montecito California with thousands of people trapped in that sludge first responders were about to be tested that happens today we can't get the engine out of this station San Ysidro is completely flooded it's impossible with entire neighborhoods washed away firefighter and paramedic and erupt knew what he had to do and he immediately started searching for survivors it was a really unique situation for us as firefighters because often times were directed where to go by people calling for help and this was more of a time when we realized we needed to go trying to figure out if in fact there were people that needed rescuing all the street signs all the mailboxes were all gone so we had no references for the addresses but I think that's one of the times that really hit me the the scope and the magnitude and the destruction was realizing that we're at the right place there's just no houses there to find these first responders often experience the same amount of tragedy and losses the rest of the community but unlike other people they have to persevere to make sure they get their job done when Kim Canton woke up she was severely injured and trapped in a pile of wreckage unaware that she'd been swept over the length of two football fields from her home I could hear warring river on one side exploding electrical wires on another side so I knew it was probably better for me just to lay there because if my leg got released and I moved I could end up in the roar Rapids or get electrocuted they yelled help help help I heard someone saying we're coming to get you she had her legs wrapped in wire and had some injuries and they needed some help getting her off of that pile Annie said where was the house and that was a really somber moment when he put it in the past tense Andy and his team were able to miraculously pull him from the debris to safety but her daughter Lauren was still missing they asked her where her house might be so I pointed my hand over my head just kind of thinking I might have been in my backyard somewhere so I was kind of thinking the house is back there and as she pointed in that direction there was a huge debris pile that had multiple cars up on top of it and so it seemed like a likely possibility that there might be someone in those cars or kind of hanging onto that debris pile what they didn't know was that she was buried under a mountain of wreckage I heard talking and that's when I realized that I had to get someone to find me so I started screaming just as loud as I could we made access to the debris pile kept hauser stayed on the ground there are power lines draped onto part of the pile so we had to be very cautious of where we're walking on that there was also a natural gas main that was blowing off so it sounded like a jet engine I climbed up onto the pile you know he stopped he said did you hear that he said someone's calling for help and sure enough once I got my head down closer to that pile and I could hear Lauren Kenton calling out for help but this rescue was not going to be easy one false step and the pile could collapse on Lauren we were able to move things like a refrigerator transistor from a telephone pole a big toolbox that goes in the back a pickup truck and then started again working on some of the wood and debris that was in there and then once I was out I stood up and kind of looked around at everything for a second I just remember thinking wow because once I looked out there was one house standing where our whole neighborhood used to be and all the trees were down everything was just an open space Florin was transported to a hospital but her mother Kim had been admitted to a different facility so she had no idea that her daughter had been saved I was in the emergency room I remember a door opened and they said do you have a daughter named Lauren and I said yes and they said they just rescued her days later Kim and Lauren were finally reunited it was very emotional she was very bruised and purple and you know hooked up to a lot of things she couldn't really move Kim and Lauren experienced unimaginable loss that day but in the months after they also found strength from the support of the Montecito community it's one day at a time it was the night the unimaginable happened but you try to take joy in the human kindness that you've seen from so many people in the community they've even forged a special bond with Andy and the other first responders who saved their lives that day I'm so indebted to them and then they've since been very supportive where my daughter likes to sing and may come to her performances I've stayed in contact with Kym and Lauren I'm just happy to stay in touch with them and hope that it continues for a long time through the whole awful tragedy thankfully healing has begun and although it's going to take a lot of time the people of Montecito have really come together to support one another one of the things that I have learned from this is that the generosity and the goodwill of people and neighbors who don't know each other come together and we saw that several times during that day of people just stepping up to help out where they could coming up a fateful decision leaves one man holding on for dear life that's how I got into my predicament I was gonna challenge mother nature Junction City Oregon gets about a hundred and fifty days of rain and snow each year so people there are pretty used to dealing with wet weather but when a storm moved in in April 2019 one man underestimated the power of nature and was left trapped in a flooded ravine luckily first responders came up with a clever but untested rescue plan Junction City is a quiet little farming community about 15 miles outside of Eugene with a population of just over five thousand it's your typical rural American city it's a small quiet town kind of always been that way it's the kind of place that people go to escape the pressure of big-city life which is what Philip Schultz did nearly 40 years ago I wanted to get out of Los Angeles and I wanted to get a graduate degree and finish my degree and taught here 31 years it said that there's not much to do in a small town but talk about the weather when in Junction City weather is an important topic and it's constantly changing the weather is very moody in Junction I mean we don't get very much snow but we got 14 inches this year which is not normal for us and in April of 2019 a major storm had everyone talking suddenly the town was facing widespread flooding we had eight inches of rain which caused the reservoirs to flood in order to relieve pressure of the overflowing reservoirs dams were open to release excess water but this caused additional flooding in ravines and roads so first responders knew that they'd have to be prepared to pull people out of that raging flood water we usually don't have water rescues except for during the summertime but when we see the flooding you know we know that it's going to be not just the river it's going to be actually out in the farmlands as well and possibly in town this is something we don't do that often we might do a water rescue once a week during the summertime and we had already done about 5:00 in the 24 hour period after two days of battling the floods the storm was starting to let up but Junction City was not out of danger yet and that's when Philip Schultz made a decision that could have cost him everything if you live in this area you're gonna have to deal with Mother Nature and that's how I got into my predicament I was gonna challenge Mother Nature tired of being trapped indoors Philip decided to drive to a local restaurant to pick up some take up as he pulled out of his driveway even he knew that this probably wasn't the best idea and I said you know if you were smart you just go back to the house but I didn't I turned to the right and knowing that I have four-wheel drive I headed down the road in any kind of high-risk situation it's extremely important to take extra precautions we all know the same better safe than sorry well in this case Phillip would end up being very sorry Phillip thought he could safely navigate the dangerous conditions but what he didn't realize was that the flood water had made it impossible to see the edge of the road and that there was a deep ravine running alongside of it when he hit a jog in the road his truck flipped and ended up in that ravine water's coming into the passenger side window suddenly I'm in water up to here and it's tipped like this coming up with no way to get to Phillip first responders have to come up with a unique rescue plan our ladder stretched so thin on such a distance I was just a little concerned about the ladder failing at the weight but first another safety tip when driving flood water is extremely dangerous because there's no way to judge how deep or rapid the water is until it's too late when your vision is limited like when you're driving at night or during a heavy rain the dangers are more significant so be safe and take precautions remember it only takes a mere foot of moving water to carry a small vehicle away in April of 2019 one of the worst floods in 20 years hit Junction City Oregon when floodgates were open to relieve the straining dams roads and highways became impassable so when Philip Schultz took his chances on the road he took his life into his own hands the problem was you couldn't see where the edges of the road were the water was just pouring over and all of a sudden whoa I'm down in the water and today with a river raging around him and his truck filling with water Philip needed to get out fast water was coming up from underneath and I was tipped so the passenger-side water was now up at the dashed level and I'm sitting in water up to here luckily a neighbor spotted him and called 9-1-1 we had just finished a rescue in Monroe when there was another call come across the radio and it was a water rescue call on Norton Road that we were able to drive to once fire chief Griffith and captain Slocum arrived they immediately assess the situation the water is really the most dangerous thing we deal with it's a force of its own and we have no way to control it it could have pushed the truck easily into a different position to where it would've been harder to get him the worst thing that could happen would have been the water pushing the truck over and putting it upside down with him trapped inside of it Griffin Slocum quickly realized that they had few options to get to Philip so they came up with an unusual rescue plan our strategy for removing the victim from his truck was to take a ladder bridge the gap between the two vehicles and lock it in place once the ladder was put in place captain Slocum would scale across it to get to Philip but this was a risky maneuver our ladder stretched so thin on such a distance I was just a little concerned about the ladder failing at the weight in an emergency situation first responders have to think on their feet and do whatever they can to make the rescue often this puts their own lives at risk but they've had no time to waste so captain Slocum tied a rope around himself and made his way across that unstable makeshift bridge to Philips truck I'm trying to stay on the truck and have some sort of stability while I help him across the rungs of the ladder to the other guys so they could get a hold of them before anything else happened thankfully Philip made it to safety thanks to a team of trained professionals and an unconventional rescue plan that is the essence of rescue I am always proud of our team we win together we fail together fortunately we win more than we fail Philip is forever indebted to the men who saved his life that day and coming out to the spot where the accident happened he knows how lucky he is to have survived I'm grateful that I'm still here with my family and friends and so forth but the point is that when we all leave houses be grateful because you don't know if you're gonna make it back captain Slocum has some words of advice for anyone wanting to tempt the hands of fate you can't see the lines it's a bad idea to drive through the water you don't know if the roads washing out you don't know what's going on under there always remember staying safe begins with personal responsibility you have to check that forecast and be prepared and mindful of potential dangers and disasters if a warnings issued take action you won't regret it I'm ginger Zee thanks so much for watching we'll see you next time 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