6 minute read
MONTECITO by Leslie Zemeckis
MONTECITO by Leslie Zemeckis
There are three basic laws that the Chumash live by: Limitation, Moderation and Compensation. Limitation meaning our time on earth. Moderation, take from the land and ocean just what is needed, leaving food for future generations. Compensation, doing something for others because your heart tells you to, not for any gains. They leave by Nature’s time, not man’s, believing living by man’s goes against the grain.
“We have to pay attention to the seasons, the changes of the land, the language of nature and the voices of its creatures. They give us insight about balance between us and our surroundings. They teach us respect for the plants that heal us and make our homes. The lessons teach us sustainability, and how to maintain our relationship with nature. It is a balance of survival.”
Unfortunately, too often Man is oblivious or in denial of the consequences of his actions that are harmful to nature's system of life.
The unincorporated town of Montecito works hard to preserve its charming semi-rural character. There are no sidewalks, nor streetlights to break the darkness at night, which means the sky above is a galaxy of glittery stars. Horses can be heard cantering on narrow streets. The occasional mountain lion or bobcat hunts, scrawny coyotes roam in packs howling, hawks circle above. A black bear or two is spotted climbing fences, foraging from abundant fruit trees, or tearing into chicken coops. Grizzly bears were once abundant, foraging across the, then, densely wooded slopes.
January 9, 2018. In the early morning hours, the steep mountains above Montecito crumble, sending masses of boulders the size of SUVs, 70-foot trees building into giant twenty-five-foot waves of mud and debris, swooping up whatever lay in its path as it rushes towards thousands of sleeping residents.
The ensuing avalanche (technically plural as five events occur nearly simultaneously) grows like a yeasty ball of dough, higher and wider. Doubling. Tripling in size. Those who saw it - and lived - compared it to the movie “The Blob” as it absorbs, mashes, and crushes septic tanks, hot water heaters, washing machines, stoves, all bubbling up into a dense tsunami. Boulders bob the crest like marshmallows on frothing hot chocolate, massive tree trunks churn beneath, riding on mud and water at speeds of twenty-five miles per hour. The unsuspecting families sleeping below are exhausted after numerous evacuations from the Thomas Fire, which left the hills a slick surface unable to absorb the downpour of apocalyptic rain. They are sitting ducks.
In the days before, Christmas decorations had been packed away, trees discarded, tinsel and wrapping paper tossed. Sighs of relief echoed throughout the canyons; rain was on its way. The threat of fire was over. No more evacuations! Fire season came early this year. It is a lucky thing as there are no other conflagrations blazing anywhere in the country freeing eight thousand fire personnel to pour into Montecito and defend its roughly 8,600 residents. As flames licked dry hills, the sky blackened, but only seven structures would burn.
At 3:45 a.m. on January 9th, five major creeks (usually bone dry, because wasn’t California always in a drought?) that cut through Montecito from the mountains to the ocean, filled and spilled when an unprecedented rain cell sat for five minutes directly over the new burn scar, dousing over half an inch of rain. Rain the mountain could not absorb.
Normally, rain would easily soak into the parched terrain. But the chaparral and scrub and plants holding the mountain together have a waxy coating, which has melted, leaving the mountain virtually waterproof. It is as if the mountain has donned a rain slicker.
Chaos ensues. A mother and daughter reach for each other, clasping hands as their house splits over their heads; a grandmother who has promised her son she would stay on the second floor, opens her front door and is yanked away. A father of six and one of his sons fight to keep their heads above the roaring water and debris that pulls them from their home that rips apart in seconds. One will die, the other will be found, naked, electrocuted from downed power lines, burnt, with multiple broken bones from boulders hitting him as he is swept a mile downhill, and dropped onto the 101 Freeway which fills with mud. A mother and her two young sons cling to a mattress as it lifts on a sea of mud and floats through a broken wall and out into the night. A pregnant woman crouches on a counter, watching as half her home washes away. Her husband and toddler in the side that disappears before her eyes. An elderly couple toss and turn as if they are a load of laundry in a giant washing machine, eyes filling with tiny rocks, certain they are going to die as they fight not to drown, calling each other’s name. A brother just returned from a Brazilian vacation holds his sister in his arms while she bleeds to death in the pouring rain.
A town will wake to mass destruction, power outages, hundreds stranded, homes gone, hedges and lush gardens and acres of trees, now barren, mine-fields of rocks and mud. The sheriff will say it looks like a “war zone.” Cars are mashed and twisted, strewn everywhere. Hundreds of them. Portions of homes hang in trees, like mangled toys. Bodies are buried under piles of debris, search dogs sniff for survivors. It will take six hours to pull a fourteen-year-old from the wreckage of her house, a pocket of air the size of a soccer ball the only thing keeping her from suffocating. A movie star and his wife hang on a wire above their mud-filled “forever” home, airlifted to safety, the wife, gripping a tiny old dog she refuses to leave behind. A son searches up and down the mud-drenched creeks in the following days, calling his mother’s name. Her body will be found near the beach.
The debris flow as it would become known would dominate headlines, talk shows and the 5 o’clock news for a few days then, as the news does, it moves on. Montecito becomes a blip in a fast-paced cycle of politics and other tragedies.
