California storm: Cars swept away, body pinned against home
LOS ANGELES — In the dark of night, Thomas Tighe saw two vehicles slowly being swept away by a river of mud and debris flowing down the road in front of his house in Montecito, California. Daybreak brought a more jarring scene: a body pinned against his neighbour’s home by a wall of muck.
Tighe is CEO of Direct Relief, a Santa Barbara, California-based charitable organization that helps disaster victims. This time, the disaster was “literally in my backyard, and front yard,” he said by phone from Montecito, about 90 miles (145 kilometres) northwest of Los Angeles.
The scene left Tighe shaken. His voice quivered and he paused several times as he described seeing the body, repeating several times it’s “just so devastating.”
At least 13 people were killed Tuesday as homes were swept away in the debris flow that formed as rain rushed off hills in Montecito left bare last month by the state’s largest-ever wildfire.