30,000 Southern Californians Ordered To Evacuate Mudslide Danger Zone

The threat of deadly mudslides from an impending Pacific storm prompted authorities on Thursday to order mandatory evacuations for some 30,000 people living adjacent to fire-scarred foothills and mountain slopes along California’s Santa Barbara coast. The evacuation was put into effect in the same general area where torrential rains on Jan. 9 unleashed cascades of mud, boulders and other debris that killed 21 people, injured dozens of others and damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes. The bulk of the devastation occurred in the affluent hillside community of Montecito, 85 miles (137 km) northwest of Los Angeles, in a region where vast swaths of the coastal landscape were stripped of vegetation by huge wildfires in December.