Desperate Search In The Mud

First came the sickening crack of splitting earth, then a sudden roar as cascading dirt and vegetation swallowed home after home.

Alerted by screams and honking horns, some in this sliver of a town found themselves racing the fast-moving flow.

A camerman from CBS affiliates KCBS/KCAL was in the neighborhood covering the evacuation when he witnessed and

"It was like the hillside turned to liquid. It all came down," Ventura County Fire Department spokesman Joe Luna said.

A fourth body was located late Tuesday morning, said fire Capt. Conrad Quintana.

Fourteen other people were injured and 20 to 27 were missing after Monday's slide, triggered by the latest in a wave of powerful storms that have saturated Southern California terrain. Twelve of the injured were hospitalized, two in critical condition, Luna said.

The same hillside collapsed several years ago, reports CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker, and some residents hold the county responsible.

Such a disaster had long ago been predicted for the community tucked between Highway 101 and a towering coastal bluff. Years ago, the cliff was found to be creeping toward the Pacific Ocean, and dozens moved out after a 1995 slide destroyed nine homes.

Dozens of firefighters armed with shovels, listening devices and other tools searched the mounds of debris Tuesday but had not found any more survivors or bodies by midmorning.

"We were digging and searching, digging and searching all night," said Ralph Arriola, 56, of the Los Angeles County Fire Department's urban search and rescue team. "I didn't find anyone."

Rescue crews called for quiet whenever they plunged sensitive microphones into the muck to listen for signs of life, and scanned the area with infrared sensors that can detect body heat.

Fire officials, told that children were among the missing, advised searchers to "look for small hands and small fingers," Luna said.

Joining the search was Jimmie Wallet, who said he had left his wife and three daughters to pick up ice cream and was leaving the store when he saw the collapsing earth curve toward his block. He ran toward his home, but it was buried.

Wallet, 37, told The Associated Press early Tuesday he had worked alongside firefighters to rescue two people from the debris Monday, and saw one of his neighbors pulled out dead.

He said he had not given up hope of finding his 36-year-old wife, Michelle and their daughters, Hanna, 10, Raven, 6, and Paloma, 2.

"I know they've got to be there. I'm not going to stop," said Wallet, caked with mud after crawling under roofs propped up by cars that created spaces in the debris pile.

However, he said, there had been a change: "I'm not hearing screaming any more."

On Monday, stunned survivors made their way from the area clutching pets, luggage or clothing.

Milli Alvis said her son Tony had fled with another youngster. "The boy that was running in front of him said that he got out but Tony didn't make it. We haven't seen him," she told KABC-TV, sobbing.

Kathleen Wood, who watched the slide churn through houses, said her 17-year-old son was in shock after hearing bodies slammed between two cars and feeling a hand with no pulse that was sticking out from the mud.

"He's pretty devastated," she told The Associated Press. "I mean, we've lived here for 18 years and he says 'Mom, I want to move."'

A camera crew out reporting on storm-caused highway closures captured the disaster on tape as it happened. The hillside cascaded down like a brown river while authorities were evacuating about 200 residents from near the unstable area. Trees and vegetation were carried away, leaving huge gashes of raw earth on the bluff. Fifteen homes were destroyed in a four-block area.

In March 1995, some 600,000 tons of earth fell onto the town during another powerful storm. Angry homeowners sued a blufftop ranch owner they accused of weakening the bluff by overwatering avocado groves. La Conchita Ranch Co. settled the suit two years later for an undisclosed amount.

Others were angry at the county, which eventually put up a $400,000 retaining wall. The wall collapsed immediately under Monday's slide, but officials said it had only been intended to stop debris, not another mudslide.

"I don't think the county is any more responsible than it was for the last slide," county public works director Ron Coons said. Residents had signed waivers after the last slide releasing Ventura County from liability in future slides.