FOREST FALLS, Calif. -- Dogs were used Monday to search for bodies in the wreckage left by a flash flood that sent a wall of water, mud and boulders through a mountain hamlet. At least one person was killed.
Fourteen homes were destroyed and debris choked the main thoroughfare of the town in the San Bernardino Mountains."My house is gone," resident Molly Lamm said.
The Sunday afternoon flood, along usually dry Mill Creek at the bottom of a steep canyon, followed a storm that dumped 1 1/2 inches of rain in a half-hour.
Although initial reports were that two people died, deputy coroner John Quinn said the body of one woman was recovered early Monday and at least one person was missing. Five people were hurt, three seriously.
Dogs were being used to search for any other bodies in the waist-deep muck and crews used bulldozers to clear a path through the community.
One elderly woman was rescued after spending three hours up to her neck in mud.
"The river just came right into her house and parked on her legs," rescuer Tristan McDow said. "It looked just like a movie out of Hollywood."
"We heard the roar and we went out. It was a good 15 feet high," said Pat Thompson, a resident of the community of 3,500 people, 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
About 100 stranded residents, campers and picnickers had to take refuge overnight at the Big Falls Lodge Steak House.