Montecito Mudslide 2018

On Tuesday morning around 2:30 am, I woke up and noticed that, although it had started to rain, it was not the heavy rain that they had predicted. Again I wondered if they had gotten the forecast wrong. I went back to sleep only to wake up about 30 minutes later to the sound of very heavy rain and wind. Normally I am pleased and excited when we get rainstorms like this -- given the drought we've experienced for the last 5 years, it's usually a welcome sound. However, I could tell that the rain was coming down at a very high rate and the wind was blowing harder than usual. At 3:45 it had been raining hard for 45 minutes so I decided to get up and get dressed just to check things out. I walked out on the balcony and I could hear the sound of the creek near us beginning to roar and a few boulders rolling. This was not necessarily surprising given the warnings we had heard. The creek was clearly well within its banks. I told Susan to get up as I thought it would be best for us to...

On Sunday night, January 7th, 2018, we were having a lovely dinner party with our friends, Jim and Mary Morouse and John and Tania Burke here at our home. We had returned Bryce to Cate School that afternoon after a nearly 6 week break due to the Thomas Fire. During our dinner, Mary informed us that her daughter had just sent a text message stating that their home was now in a mandatory evacuation zone for the next several days due to the risk of a flood or mudslide danger. Susan and I received a text message from the Santa Barbara Office of Emergency Management notifying us that we were under 'Voluntary Evacuation' for the same time period. This alert was due to an upcoming storm and the fact that the hillsides had burned recently -- meaning that the chances of flooding and/or major mudslides or debris flows were higher than usual. Since all three couples had evacuated for several weeks due to the Thomas Fire, this was not welcome news. We also received a notification from Ca...