OAK GLEN, Calif. — Mudslides and debris flows knocked down trees, plowed into homes and trapped drivers for 10 hours after several Southern California communities were hit by heavy rain, authorities said.
No one was hurt and authorities were able to get them out, and no one is reported missing, Christopher Prater, a public information officer for San Bernardino County Fire, said Friday.
The mudslides late Thursday affected the tiny mountain communities of Forest Falls, Oak Glen and Potato Canyon in San Bernardino County, just east of Los Angeles, the county’s fire protection district said in a statement.
Authorities rescued 10 people traveling in at least six vehicles who were stranded on state Route 38 in the area of Jenks Lake, near the San Bernardino National Forest, the fire district said. The route is narrow and winding through towering trees and curves back and forth up the mountainside, linking cities east of Los Angeles with the resort town of Big Bear Lake.
Kael Steel told KNBC-TV he was driving down the mountain from Big Bear to head to an amusement park when the rain started pounding.
“Suddenly we started seeing rocks and stuff coming down the side of the mountain,” he said.
Steel said cars were turning around telling him the road was blocked. So he headed back up the mountain, but was blocked again. He turned around once more and said the road he had crossed 30 seconds earlier had been wiped away.
“There’s no road there anymore,” he said.
The route was still closed as of Friday morning, the California Highway Patrol said.
Damage teams planned to assess the hillside areas impacted by the slides. Officials could not immediately say how many homes were affected or the extent of the damage.
“The community obviously has been impacted fairly significantly,” Prater said. “How bad, we don’t know yet.”
Forest Falls, a tiny town just off Route 38, was walloped by mudslides three years ago.
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