Search-and-rescue crews summoned from throughout Southern California will resume digging through several feet of mud on Wednesday morning, Sept. 14, in an attempt to find a person reported missing after a rain-soaked mountainside collapsed and rammed through a house in the San Bernardino Mountains community of Forest Falls on Monday.
A Labrador from the Orange County Fire Authority sniffed the search area Tuesday in an attempt to lead rescuers to the victim. Then around 2 p.m., an excavator arrived on Prospect Drive to clear the 6-foot-high pile of mud, car-sized boulders and debris. The road was still closed Tuesday evening.
The vegetation that holds the dirt together had been burned away in the El Dorado fire. The heat from the flames also seared the ground, making it difficult for the land to absorb rainfall.
The possible victim is the only person still being sought in the mountains after others believed missing were located, said Battalion Chief Mike McClintock, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department.
“Rescuers have taken each one of these seriously and have continued to search the populated areas with more than 120 personnel, specialized search dogs and heavy equipment,” McClintock said.
No details on the missing person were available Tuesday evening.
The mud slammed through the two-story home on Prospect Drive at about 4 p.m. Monday, ripping through the garage and the front of the house, McClintock said. It damaged three other houses across the street and left a 6-foot-high pile of debris, including car-sized boulders, blocking the street.
Firefighters were alerted to the catastrophe by other occupants of the house who said they could not find someone.
The state Office of Emergency Services summoned crews from multiple agencies, including urban search-and-rescue teams from Pasadena, Santa Fe Springs and Downey.
Forest Falls, with a year-round population of about 1,000 people, is in a canyon at the 6,000-foot level off of a sharp U-turn that takes travelers up Highway 38 to the resort towns including Big Bear.
After being overwhelmed by mudslides, highways 38 and 18 reopened Tuesday in the San Bernardino Mountains but some other roads remain closed.
The flooding affected burn-scar areas of the Apple and El Dorado fires from 2020, said Eric Sherwin, another spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department. Debris flows hit Forest Falls and Oak Glen particularly hard, Sherwin said.
Britney Kreager, 23, and boyfriend Joseph Tapia, 24, were in one of the approximately 30 cars that lined Highway 38 just outside Valley of the Falls Drive, awaiting clearance to return Tuesday.
But by 4 p.m., they had waited five hours there and were impatient. Tapia wondered why the CHP couldn’t escort residents as officers do after some fires and heavy snowfall.
But at 6 p.m., the shelter-in-place order from Monday expired in Forest Falls, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Residents were only allowed in the area and an evacuation order was still in place from Canyon Drive to Prospect Drive, south of Valley of the Falls, sheriff’s officials said.
In Oak Glen, all evacuation orders were lifted Tuesday evening, with only residents allowed to enter the area of Oak Glen and Chagnall roads to Running Quail Road, the Sheriff’s Department said. Potato Canyon Road remain closed into the evening, authorities said.
Home to the popular apple orchards, mud damaged the Oak Glen Steakhouse and prompted the closure of a half-mile stretch of Oak Glen Road south of the restaurant, McClintock said.
From @SBCOUNTYFIRE
Effective at 6pm: Oak Glen Rd between Chagall & Running Quail is open to residents only. East side of Oak Glen Rd out of Cherry Valley is open.
Effective at 6pm: Hwy 38 & Valley of the Falls Dr open to residents only. Canyon Rd & Prospect Loop remain closed.
— Supervisor Dawn Rowe (@supervisorrowe) September 13, 2022
Forest Falls resident Lloyd Sherman said ash was mixed in with the mud in the debris flows. He said power and water service were out.
Residents of Prospect Drive in Forest Falls said Tuesday they had been warned that heavy rain was coming. It wasn’t an exaggeration, one said, for her to describe the sound of the mudslide as similar to a freight train. Another said it was the loudest earth collapse he’d ever heard.
The evacuations for some Forest Falls residents were ordered Monday as fire equipment rolled back and forth and officials worried about the possibility of additional rainfall and mudslides. A California Highway Patrol officer made sure there was no unauthorized entrance to the canyon.
An evacuation center was established at Redlands East Valley High, 31000 E. Colton Ave.
A Forest Falls resident describes Monday’s flash flood and mud flow on Prospect Dr. At least 4 homes sustained heavy damage. There are unconfirmed reports that one resident is still missing. pic.twitter.com/ZWbJA8Pzlr
— Will Lester (@WillLesterPhoto) September 13, 2022
Staff photographer Will Lester contributed to this report.