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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (4229)	1/11/2005 10:57:42 PM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 36917

I saw most of this on the tv...just HEART and GUT WRENCHING....this guy goes for ice cream and comes back to his ENTIRE FAMILY AND HOME UNDER MUD Searchers Dig for Calif. Mudslide Victims By PAUL CHAVEZ LA CONCHITA, Calif. (AP) - Rescuers with listening devices sensitive enough to pick up a whimper or a faint tapping searched on Tuesday for victims feared buried in a mudslide that sent a thunderous cascade of trees and dirt onto this seaside hamlet. At least four people were killed and 14 were injured - most of them pulled from the mud. As many as 20 others were unaccounted for. Neighbors and relatives of the missing watched in agony as rescuers hauled away dirt bucket by bucket and looked for signs of life. Commands for quiet would bring activity to a halt as rescuers lowered microphones into the debris to listen for survivors. ``I know they've got to be there. I'm not going to stop,'' Jimmie Wallet said as he desperately searched for his wife and three children, ages 2, 6 and 10. His face and clothes were caked in mud after digging for hours. The mudslide was a byproduct of a ferocious string of storms that have claimed at least 19 lives around the state since Friday. The heavy rain has left bluffs and hillsides soaked, raising the risk of more mudslides like the one that devastated La Conchita on Monday. The dirt flowed like a waterfall, engulfing more than a dozen homes in a four-block area of the town 70 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Panicked residents ran as the tons of mud closed in one them; others ran toward the mudslide, helping some of the injured reach safety. Twelve homes were destroyed and 16 were damaged. Yellow-clad firefighters and prison crews in orange suits clambered over the dark brown mound, using their hands, shovels, buckets, wheelbarrows and chainsaws. Initial work was done by hand, but by afternoon, a backhoe was brought in to move larger debris. Tow trucks removed flattened vehicles. ``There are a lot of residents here waiting on loved ones, and we can't give up yet,'' said Capt. Conrad Quintana of the Ventura County Fire Department. All the while, a still-unstable cliff towered above them. Onlookers were given air horns and told to sound them if they saw any sign that the hillside was starting to give way again. The fourth body was discovered around midday Tuesday. The victims includethree men in their 50s and a woman. Wallet, the man who spent the night digging for his wife and kids, was briefly handcuffed and detained after trying to run past a barricade. ``I have to get my kid! I have to get my kid!'' Wallet screamed before he was taken into a command post and then allowed to return to the mound. Wallet had gone to pick up ice cream when the mudslide hit. Emerging from a store, he watched the dirt curve toward his block. He sprinted to his home, but it was buried under the muck. Wallet's story is one of several harrowing ordeals from the storms in Southern California: A man's body was found wedged in a tree in a canyon; an 18-year-old woman was killed when her car hit a fallen tree; a 79-year-old woman was run over and killed by her husband, who could not see her in the downpour.