As the death toll in the Montecito mudslides increased to 19 on Saturday, officials announced that the 101 Freeway would remain closed indefinitely.
Search and rescue crews recovered the body of Morgan Corey, 25, who was found in debris near Mill Road about 9 a.m. Saturday, officials said. She was among at least five people who were still listed as missing.
At a late afternoon news conference at the Earl Warren Fairgrounds, Santa Barbara Fire Chief Eric Peterson spoke about the difficulties and challenges faced by emergency responders in their search for survivors.
“I have felt the heartbreak of knowing that even with all of your skill and all of your training and all of your planning, you couldn’t save everybody,” he said. “No one could have planned for the size and scope of what a 200-year storm immediately following our largest wildfire could bring.”
Emergency crews remain in search-and-rescue mode, he said. However, he added, “after every hour it becomes less likely we will find someone alive, but there is always hope.”
Highway 101, a major north-south artery that carries 100,000 vehicles through the Central Coast each day, was initially expected to open Monday, but officials said cleaning up an approximately two-mile stretch of the freeway was proving more difficult than imagined.
“It’s really an overwhelming situation and we don’t want to give an estimate that isn’t accurate,” CalTrans spokesman Colin Jones said.
CalTrans crews, aided by private contractors and the Army Corps of Engineers, have been working around the clock on the approximately two-mile stretch of the debris-strewn freeway near Montecito. Crews have removed most of the vehicles abandoned in the storm, including a number of tractor-trailers, but a significant amount of debris and mud remains.
Los Angeles Fire Department search-and-rescue team tried to sound an optimistic note — hoping for the best, bracing for the worst. Members used an arsenal of tools, technology and specially trained dogs to probe piles of debris more than 15 feet deep at the southern end of Romero Creek.
“It’s as exhausting, frustrating and tedious as looking for a needle in a haystack,” LAFD Battalion Chief Mark Akahoshi said while hunched over a topographical map of surrounding terrain studded with ranches and mansions offering panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean.
One of the region’s most famous resorts, San Ysidro Ranch, sustained extensive damage in the mudslides, McElroy said Saturday. The luxury hotel, which has counted Audrey Hepburn, Winston Churchill and honeymooners John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy as guests, is edged by a creek that became a torrent of boulders, toppled trees and muck.
Contractors and crews using earthmovers and dump trucks were streaming into the property Saturday morning. Elroy said many key structures on the property remained standing.