LA CONCHITA Who will pray for them

LA CONCHITA, California (CNN) -- Rescue crews on Tuesday searched for as many as 27 people who may be trapped in Southern California mudslides that have already claimed four lives.


Click here for video of the California mudslide

Few details were given about the fourth fatality. The body was discovered Tuesday but yet to be retrieved, authorities said.

At least 14 people have been treated in hospitals due to injuries from the mudslide.

"We have sound sensors placed in the debris, and that's what's led us to the people that we've recovered from that debris field," said Bob Brooks with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department, referring to the nine survivors who were pulled from the morass left by Monday's slide.
Tuesday morning, rescuers worked for hours to comb through a site where a mother and her three children were believed to be trapped, but they found no one.

Listening devices picked up a signal from that area late Monday and again early Tuesday, officials said.

Los Angeles utility workers Doug Quintal, left, and Eric Lawrence pass a two-story house that collapsed after a mudslide Monday Jan 10, 2005, in the Coldwater Canyon section of Los Angeles. Authorities said a father and his two children were pulled from the rubble of the home. The father had minor injuries. Nine deaths have been linked to a series of storms pounding Southern California that have unleashed flash floods and mudslides, forced evacuations and closed roads and schools.

"The father is currently in utter distress, trying to give us an idea of where his family might be," said Ventura County firefighter Garrett Pater, adding that the soil is extremely saturated and has the consistency of clay.

"It's heavy, heavy clay, so you have that and [you have to] take into consideration that you have had eight to 15 houses sliding into each other and on top of each other," Pater said.

Officials gave conflicting figures for the number of missing after the mudslide, saying between 20 and 27 people are unaccounted for. Witnesses reported seeing 30 to 40 people swept under the wave of mud.

Keith Mashburn, the fire department's chief investigator, said all three fatalities were adult males.

Authorities have blamed the landslides and flooding on five days of heavy rain, which have resulted in about a dozen deaths in Southern California.

In San Marcos Pass, not far from Santa Barbara, nearly 24 inches of rain have fallen since Thursday.

Officials said almost 10 inches of rain had fallen since Friday in areas that included Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and the San Fernando Valley. Downtown Los Angeles received 3.5 inches by late Monday.

The search was called off for a few hours overnight as more rain threatened to bring down more of the mountain, but more than 160 rescue workers resumed their work as soon as it was safe. The mud was estimated to be up to 30 feet deep.

'Entire mountainside' came down
Monday's large mudslide came shortly before 1:30 p.m. (4:30 p.m. ET), several hours after a smaller mudslide overnight left one of the main highways impassable to the north and flooding blocked the road to the south, which meant more residents and children were at home than on a typical day.

After the smaller mudslide, authorities began evacuating residents of La Conchita, northwest of Los Angeles.

About 100 people had left before the second wave sluiced down the normally picturesque mountain above the community.

"I stepped outside my door and heard a noise, almost like a pop," said resident Bill Harbison, who helped rescue two women trapped in the mudslide.

"I looked up and I saw the entire mountainside just come down and just race through part of our little town here.

"I could hear them. They were buried beneath just an unbelievable amount of wreckage, broken glass, live power lines." he said.

Video of the mudslide showed a large portion of a towering bluff break off and then rumble down the hill toward the town, carrying trees, power lines and thick mud into homes below. Several cars were crushed, and a bus was tossed into one of the homes.

As the mudslide began, one man shouted, "Get out of here!" Another yelled, "It's coming down!" Residents then frantically ran into the streets, and some quickly helped in rescue efforts.

As rescuers work to find more survivors, they're keeping an anxious eye on the surrounding hillsides, with more rain forecast for Tuesday.

"There's a crevice that goes along the face. The geologists are saying it's very dangerous at this point, the rain makes it more so," Brooks said.

Dry weather was forecast for Wednesday.

Barrier no match for mudslide
In 1995, La Conchita was hit by a large mudslide that caused heavy damage. A barrier wall had been built to help protect the town, but the wall appeared to be completely covered in Monday's mudslide.

"The retaining wall that's there is very inefficient. It's a small portion of the debris field itself," Brooks said.

"When you look at the volume -- I think in '95, when they had the last slide, they were talking about 600,000 tons of sand and mud coming down -- there's really nothing that can stop something of that magnitude. It's almost completely a sheer cliff."

South of Los Angeles, authorities Tuesday began evacuating residents of a mobile home park in San Juan Capistrano after rising floodwaters in the San Juan Creek carried away part of the creek's concrete bank.

Assistant City Manager Bill Huber said city crews were placing large boulders and dirt into piles to shore up the levy wall.

"The floodwaters doubled in height and speed last night and the crews couldn't keep up with it," he said.

Officials closed three schools for the day so residents of the mobile home park could be evacuated to a gymnasium shared by the schools.

The city is best known for its two-month Swallows Festival, held to mark the return of the birds around March 19 of each year, according to the city's Web site.

In 1968 they had rains like this in So. Calif, the LA river raised up over the banks by over 20 feet, it took months for the river to go down and the fields near the river to be more than mud pits. It took 6 months to recover the sports field and track at my Jr. High School from the river.

Father, shine a light on the missing for the searchers to follow. do not allow them to waste their time looking where the lost are not to be found. Send them straight to the lost, straight to the living first and then to the bodies of those who died in the flood. Father, stableize the hillsides and keep the searchers safe. Protect those who are lost and comfort those who have lost loved ones in the mud, Bring them to Jesus for their comfort and completeness. AMEN!

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1Co 11:31 For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

Lord, there are those who would say that this disaster was the result of the decision to approve stem cell research, legally. Or that there are other abominations which caused this or that.

Your ways are not our ways and Your thoughts are not our thoughts. Why would you allow something like this to fall on the precious people that You love so much? The people that You want to come to You?

How can we judge ourselves, if we are looking out of our own eyes? Give us Your eyes, and open our ears, so we can hear what Your answer is to us.

Open up and heal our understanding. Dry our tears and help us to know what to do. In Jesus' Name protect us from the evil that has come to our land. Open our hearts and break off any bondage that keeps us from the victory You have promised us.

Lift us all up together, Lord, in Your Right Hand. Hold us and never let us go.

In Jesus' Name we ask all of these things...Amen.

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Trust God.

Samuel Doctorian, who prophesied the twin towers falling and the tsanami back in 1998, also propehsied much flooding in America. An angel came to him in a vision and was carrying a bowl of judgement. He asked the angel if there was no way the judgement could be held back. The angel said, "No."
Abortion is one of the reasons, he mentioned. All I know is when I heard Samuel Doctorian telling this on Benny Hinn's program, I cried. My heart broke for America. He also said there would be the greatest revival ever in America as the judgement came on America. When I turned on the news and saw that, his prophesy came to mind. It is already happening.

Dear Lord, I pray that You will SAVE souls. Nothing else matters. Every person who survives this, let them understand they have been given a second chance to find Jesus. I pray that those who are Christians, who were protected, will have a a great testimony to share! Father, I do believe this is Your judgement, for the Bible is very plain that You stir up nature when You are angry. I pray that people will realize that God is not going to wihtold judgement forever, and that it is TIME to get saved! It is time not to wait one more day, taking the risk of dying without the Lord. Even if this is not judgement, they must realize LIFE IS SHORT! One can go at any moment. Today IS the day of salvation. Convict people, by Your Holy Spirit, of their need for You, Jesus. I pray that You will send revival. I pray that people not even in that area will realize NOW IS THE TIME to get right with God. Let people realize, they ARE NOT in control. God is in control, and they must bow the knee to Him. In Jesus Name, I pray, amen.

~JeriRose~
Finding YOU in 2005

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24 But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:24)