Portion of Wrightwood slammed by feet of mud, inundating cars and homes
WRIGHTWOOD, Calif. (KABC) -- Residents in Wrightwood woke up to a muddy mess on Christmas morning after Wednesday's powerful storm left a trail of destruction through the small mountain community.
Now, the community is left picking up the pieces. Many residents have homes inundated with mud.
A river of mud, rock and debris raced through the tight-knit mountain neighborhood on Christmas Eve.
"We've done rain, fires, floods, we've gone through everything... but not like this," said resident Erica Nicolai.
Residents were left without power, and their cars were inundated with mud.
Eyewitness News spoke with two residents who live on the corner of Pine Street and Oriole Road, who said they had plans to visit family in Barstow on Wednesday, but that quickly changed.
"At first it was something I've seen before... just a little bit of flooding on the street, nothing, like, too alarming, but by the hour, it got very alarming, very fast," said Kaitlyn Johnson.
She said the river of water flowing outside of her home "tripled in size" as the day went on. Then, the water flow broke through a fence and began flooding her home.
"It's crazy," she said. "I mean, I definitely think we got lucky, for sure, because some of our neighbors are in a very tough spot right now."
The areas near Pine Street and Oriole Road are buried under feet of mud.
"This house is our safe gate. This white house. So we came over there and helped that neighbor do everything he could to help his yard, because his yard is our lifeline. Then we lost his yard, and this whole river split like 10 feet, and it finally waterfalled into our backyard. Our shed is full of mud, halfway up and up to our door handle has mud," a neighbor told Eyewitness News.
Wrightwood received nearly 10 inches of rain.
"I'm just devastated. It was literally the nightmare before Christmas," said Misty Cheng.
Cheng shared a video she received from her neighbor, showing her property rapidly flooding as she was out of town.
"This is like a rushing river," Cheng said.
She returned home on Christmas to see the damage firsthand.
"When I first arrived at the house, I just broke out in tears because it was just devastating," she said. "To have five feet of pure dirt and rock inside my house, in my garage, in my backyard, halfway up my windows. I can literally walk onto my roof, the second-floor roof, from my backyard."
The devastation is unfathomable. But on Christmas night, neighbors say they are focusing not on what is lost, but what remains.
A shelter-in-place order issued for the community of Wrightwood was changed to an evacuation warning on Thursday afternoon, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department announced.
"There is still a potential for mud and debris flows from an approaching storm that may affect your area," read a post on the department's X account.
Residents are being asked to use this evacuation map to track down all the areas that have been impacted.
Residents are encouraged to sign up for the Telephone Emergency Notification System (TENS) and visit http://prepare.sbcounty.gov for any incident updates.
San Bernardino County fire crews went door-to-door, checking on residents and urging some of them to evacuate immediately.
An evacuation center has been set up at the Victorville Fairgrounds for anyone who needs a place to go.
