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First Fire, Then Floods: 13 Dead in Mudslides in California

HeadlineJan 10, 2018

In California, at least 13 people have died after torrential rains triggered mudslides in Santa Barbara County. At least two dozen more people are missing, and authorities expect the death toll to rise. Scientists have linked extreme rainfall events to climate change. This is Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown.

Sheriff Bill Brown: “While we hope it will not, we expect that this number will increase as we continue to look for people who are still missing and unaccounted for. We had a very difficult time assessing the area and responding to many of those areas to assist those people. The only words I can really think of to describe what it looked like was it looked like a World War I battlefield.”

The torrential downpours and deadly mudslides in Santa Barbara, California, come only weeks after the region was ravaged by historic and deadly winter wildfires.

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