Mudslide buries portion of Santa Rosa home, trapping residents
A mudslide cascaded onto a home in Santa Rosa Tuesday evening, trapping residents inside until rescue crews were able to reach them, authorities said.
The Sonoma County Fire Protection District said the slide happened around 5 p.m. Tuesday on Deer Trail Court west of Wallace Road and just east of Rincon Ridge.
The slide severely damaged the home, collapsing part of its walls and roof and causing the home to buckle with the second floor separating from the bottom portion of the home.
Debbie Eakins said she watched from her street Tuesday as emergency crews raced up Deer Trail Road to a home that had just been hit by a landslide.
"I watched them go up partway and then I went in our backyard, and I got my binoculars, and I could see maybe five or six emergency vehicles up there," said Eakins.
Video showed the sheer amount of dirt and debris that slammed into the front of the home.
Fire officials said two people were trapped inside and had to be rescued. Neither were hurt. The force of the impact was so great it pushed the house forward, folding a section of the home into itself.
Eakins told KPIX, as she was watching the events unfold through her binoculars, she didn't even realize it was a landslide causing all the commotion.
"I was concerned that there must have been a big medical emergency because there was no smoke, you know because there were so many vehicles," said Eakins.
Eakins as well as other neighbors said the hillside the home was on had been scorched during the Tubbs Fire.
"I'm glad I don't live up there. It's beautiful up there, but I'd rather be down here. Flat ground, yes," said Valerie McIntosh.
Fire officials said three homes were evacuated and two red tagged. Crews also notified 17 other homeowners in the area of the slide. The city is cautioning people to be on the lookout for any more land or hillside movement as more rain is expected Thursday.
Eakins said she keeps thinking of all the wreckage the homeowners will now have to sort through.
"That's really the thing I thought about, I mean besides somebody getting hurt, is like what, how do you deal with a loss like that. That's pretty tough," said Eakins.
The house, perched against a hillside, had been rebuilt on the burn scar after the 2017 Tubbs Fire, making it especially vulnerable to heavy rain, said Hancock.
The home was the second to be damaged or destroyed in Sonoma County on Tuesday because of the effects of the atmospheric river-fueled storm. Earlier during Tuesday's downpour, a slide pushed a home into the swollen Russian River in Forestville, where it was completely washed away.
No one was in the home at the time.
