A rainstorm sent rivers of waist-high mud and debris flowing from the hills into the affluent Santa Barbara County community of Montecito early Tuesday -- ravaging swaths of land scorched by the Thomas fire last month.
Floodwater overwhelmed the south-facing slopes above the town of 9,000, northwest of Los Angeles, bursting the banks of a creek and sending massive rocks rolling into homes, according to emergency services.
"The sheriff's office can confirm 15 fatalities but is not able to provide additional details at this time," a spokesman for the county department said on its Twitter feed.
At least 25 other people were injured, authorities said, while first responders were able to airlift around 50 residents and rescue dozens more from the ground.
"Currently we are working to identify people who might still be trapped and isolated in areas that we have not been able to gain complete access to," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown told CBS's "This Morning."
"We worked through the night and I'm happy to say we managed to get to some folk trapped in homes but otherwise safe."
He said that there was no way of telling how many people were still trapped, adding that some people had ignored evacuation orders.
Intensity
"I think most people are shocked at the extent of the damage and how big the impact was to the area. Although we knew this was coming, you couldn't help but be amazed at the intensity of the storm and the result of the mudslide and the water that cascaded down the hills."
The Santa Barbara County Fire Department said on its Twitter feed Tuesday it was using dogs to look for victims where multiple homes once stood in Montecito following the heavy rain.
The department posted pictures of rivers of mud flowing through neighborhoods, with homes collapsed, cars smashed up and turned onto their roofs and roads rendered impassible by fallen trees.
Roads were clogged throughout the region with mudflows shutting down more than 30 miles (50 kilometers) of the 101 Freeway on Tuesday and knocking a number of homes from their foundations.
The highest rainfall total was recorded at five inches (13 centimeters) in Ventura County, according to the National Weather Service Los Angeles.
Much of the affected area is land scorched by the massive Thomas fire several weeks ago, the second-largest wildfire in California's history, where there is no vegetation to soak up the excess water.
A evacuation order was issued in a section of the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, which was hit by a mudslide that pulled cars out of driveways and carried them downstream.
Power cuts
The slide also caused a "significant" gas leak, and repair efforts left homes on the street with no gas, electricity or water.
"There were many homes, about 40 to 45 homes, affected by it, a couple homes damaged," Burbank Fire Department Battalion Chief John Owings told local TV news channel KCAL9.
"We performed two physical rescues at approximately 7 o'clock this morning."
At Los Angeles International Airport, flooding forced the closure of the customs area in Terminal 2.
The rain was lighter in the desert than in coastal areas, but the downpour shattered a January 9 Palm Springs record of 1.13 inches set in 1980, according to the weather service.
The rain had all but vanished by Tuesday evening, but mandatory evacuations were still in place across the region due to the threat of additional mudslides.
"Any additional rain is going to push more mud down," Owings said.
The storm came after a 10-month dry spell following torrential rains in January and February of last year.
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