Family flees as Calif. home overtaken by mudslide
Jonathan Blinderman was jolted awake by a crash after a night of pouring rain.
— -- Santa Barbara, California, resident Jonathan Blinderman was jolted awake this morning after a night of pouring rain.
He heard a loud noise coming from outside, so he sprung to his feet and peeked out the window.
Cars were gliding on mud like metallic slalom skiers down his backyard.
The lawyer's Toyota Land Cruiser was one of the cars “rushing down the street.”
As for his Infiniti, he didn’t have to look far -- it had plowed into his living room that was filled with mud.
“I hear a bang and that was our car crashing into our house," Blinderman, 52, told ABC News.
He leaped into action.
"So the mud started coming in and I woke up the kids and the nanny,” he said.
Blinderman also rounded up the family’s three rescue dogs.
“Jonathan called me and told he pulled our neighbor out of the creek,” Blinderman’s wife, Mary Long, said earlier on Tuesday. “I’m like, ‘You’re joking.’”
Heavy rains in Santa Barbara and the surrounding area have downed trees and flooded roadways. At least six people have been killed in the rainstorm.
While Blinderman secured his family and dogs and thought the worst was over, he heard cries for help.
"I’m walking through 2 feet of mud and I hear ‘Help me! I’m hurt, help me!’” he recalled.
The panicked voice was coming from a creek near the house, where he and Long have lived for over five years.
“There was a guy screaming for help and I told him to grab onto a tree branch because I couldn’t get him,” he said.
The man was about 50 yards away in a creek.
But the man, whom Blinderman described as being in his 30s, somehow trudged on his own through the rising, murky waters.
“He managed to get across the creek and he was in the middle of my backyard with mud flowing over him,” Blinderman said.
He never spoke. Blinderman deduces he was suffering from exhaustion and shock.
Save for the mud, the stranger was also completely naked.
“He was covered head to toe in mud,” Blinderman said.
Then Blinderman fetched blankets to comfort the man, whom he only knew as “Victor,” until an ambulance arrived.
“He couldn’t talk and I was worried the guy might have had hypothermia and some broken ribs,” he said.
Notably, Blinderman wasn't dwelling on his family's tragic circumstances.
"We're all fine," he said.
Blinderman said numerous friends have come forward with open offers to board his evacuated family.
"This community is amazing and we're going to be OK," he said.
