Mudslide sweeps Northern California house into Russian River
A house was swept into the Russian River by a mudslide in Forestville near the Forest Hills Bridge Tuesday afternoon as an atmospheric river battered Northern California.
The storm system has concentrated rainfall on the North Bay since the rain began on Friday, dropping anywhere from three to four inches to up to nine inches in parts of Marin and Sonoma county.
It was about 12:30 when a California Highway Patrol officer responded to a reports of a hillside giving way. That officer watched as the land and trees below Westside Road went sliding down towards the Russian River. One home went right along with it.
"As we all know, the Russian River is a beautiful place, especially during the summer," said Sgt. Juan Valencia with the Sonoma County Sheriff's." But when we get these heavy rains, it's very unpredictable."
Within minutes, rescue teams from across Sonoma County had descended on this narrow street, and eventually down to the debris below. For a time, rescue teams patrolled the water, but eventually word came that the house was empty.
"No, we checked we checked with the property owner, and there was nobody inside the house" Valencia said.
CBS News Bay Area reporter Wilson Walker was near the scene and posted photos of the mudslide that had destroyed the home, leaving debris piled at the side of the still-rising Russian River.
Walker said that the address of the house that was swept into the river was 12354 Westside Rd. in Forestville. The small town along the Russian River is located in Sonoma County.
"A mudslide has taken a house into the Russian River just above River Road," the post from around 1:45 p.m. read. It included several photos showing the damage and cones blocking Westside Rd. just above the river. The Forest Hills Bridge was visible in the background.
"I thought it was just like brush, or a tree sliding down a hill," said Tony, a nearby neighbor. "I didn't know it was a whole house. Then the transformer popped, and that sounded like a gun going off."
Just a couple homes away, he said he didn't realize exactly what had happened, until someone told him to go look at the hillside from the bridge.
"They said there was a mudslide," he said. "I didn't know there was a house in the river."
Others watched in disbelief as a large portion of the house made its way down the river. And the county is just now beginning to assess what comes next at the site of the slide.
"Right now...we're still trying to determine [and] we're trying to get all of our resources up here," Valencia said. "We did evacuate the people up on this hillside, because obviously there's a landslide. And we're predicting another landslide to occur that we want to keep people out of harm's way."
According to the real estate website Redfin, the 1,500 square-foot house had five bedrooms and two bathrooms and sits on a 0.28 acre lot. The home was last sold over 30 years ago in late 1993 for $218,000. According to the website, the house's current estimated value is $667,676.
The rain triggered flood warnings in Sonoma County, one which replaced an earlier flood advisory for the central portion of the county, now in effect until 10 p.m. Wednesday. The Weather Service said some of the locations that will see flooding include Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Windsor, Sebastopol, Cotati, Larkfield-Wikiup, Forestville and Graton.
The warning indicated that flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations was imminent or occurring. Streams and other waterways were expected to keep rising because of the excess runoff from earlier rainfall. Low-water crossings were being inundated with water and may not be passable, the Weather Service warned.
Early Tuesday evening, evacuation orders were issued for low lying areas near the Russian River, which is expected to reach minor flood stage by around 1 a.m. Wednesday morning.