Red Cross Offers Couple Lifeline After Storm’s Wild Ride

The blacktop roadway, just off Laguna Canyon Road, was two blocks long. For Sandy Bush, it was two blocks of terror.

When the pre-dawn flash flood hit the canyon just over a week ago, Bush was trying to move one of the family vehicles to higher ground. Her husband, Joel, was busy trying to move the dogs to safety at the kennel they operate next door.

Water from Laguna Canyon Creek, which runs along the front of their property, seemed to swell over its banks almost instantly. The roadway became a raging river, sending another car hurling over hers. Bush, trying to reach safety on foot after that, was swept into the darkness, right out of her boots and most of her clothing.

She still suffers from bruised ribs and a damaged liver. She still has tire tracks across her chest, from a motorcycle that ran over her as it, too, was swept away by raging water.

I visited the Bushes on Monday because they wanted to get out the word about what a terrific job the Orange County chapter of the American Red Cross has done on their behalf.

“The Red Cross has given us our sanity,” Sandy Bush said. “I don’t know what we would have done without those people.”

The Bushes’ home along Sun Valley Drive, which runs parallel to Laguna Canyon Road, is a pit of mud and debris and ruins. They’ve concentrated their efforts mainly on getting their kennel back in operation, which they’ve accomplished.

Bush relived her terror for me as we retraced the current’s path along Sun Valley. There’s where she tried to grab the neighbor’s curb, she told me. There’s the tree she briefly held onto until its branch gave way. And “here is where the motorcycle ran over me.”

Twists of fate are sometimes so bizarre you can only shake your head in wonder. The motorcycle that almost killed her, she said, wound up saving her life. She explained:

Where the road curves two blocks beyond her home, Bush was about to be swept into the heart of the creek itself, which had swollen to Amazon River-like proportions. Debris upstream had clogged at a bridge, turning it into a dam. Her husband believes that if she had reached the creek, she would not have survived.

But that motorcycle which swept past her in the current was moving so fast it knocked out a wall around the parking lot at the nearby Canyon Club, an Alcoholics Anonymous facility. Bush was swept into its parking lot through the hole made by the motorcycle.

And in that parking lot, jammed against a sidewalk, was a wooden box which also had sailed with the current. Just yards from the creek, Bush grabbed the box and held on. The grounds are slanted, and she was able to climb to shallow water and make it to the club building. She got in through a window and called 911.

But when a firetruck arrived, it couldn’t get to her through the flooding. That’s when a neighbor, Ricardo Duffy, found her, two hours after she had been swept away. Duffy had been combing the area looking for anyone to help.

“She was in shock and didn’t want to move,” Duffy said. “But I finally got her to the firetruck. The water had gone down some by then.”

Where was her husband during this? For more than an hour, he was hanging onto a eucalyptus near their yard for dear life, trying not to be swept away too.

Though it’s been more than a week, Sun Valley is still a chaotic sight. Duffy, an artist, showed me his studio, which was hit by 4 feet of water. It looked like an abandoned shack.

The Bushes continue to live in housing provided by the Red Cross. The organization has fed them and provided clothing.

“What the Red Cross is doing for us is giving us time to take a stand,” Joel Bush said. “We’ll rebuild, you can count on that. But it’s going to take time.”

Amid the debris, I came across a picture of a flooding victim in the USA Today newspaper. On closer inspection, it was Sandy Bush. The headline said, “A Mind-Altering Experience.”

“That was two years ago,” she said. The Sun Valley neighborhood flooded then too. “But it wasn’t anything compared to this time.”

Home Run After Four Strikes: Many of you have inquired how the war has been going between my family and that psychic network that duped my 15-year-old son. (It advertised a “free” psychic reading, but when he called its free 800 number, a recording told him to dial a second number. He made the false assumption that this one would be free too. Wrong--by $46.30.)

Pacific Bell officials and the Orange County district attorney’s office advised us not to pay. One Pac Bell representative said it usually takes about six months for such rip-off artists to finally get the message and give up.

For the first four monthly telephone bills, we were dunned for the same $46.30. My response notes read a little like “Meet me at High Noon to discuss this.”

When the fifth month’s bill recently arrived, these mysterious people had finally called it quits.

So if you’re duped by a TV offer for a free psychic reading, my advice is: Don’t pay.

The Gift of Sidestepping: Ever get a rather ghastly Christmas gift? Womens Focus, a Tustin-based career development and placement company, has sent out a list of things to say (without lying) when the giver is anxiously awaiting your reaction. A sampling:

“Wow! Now that’s a gift!”

“Well, well, well.”

“Really, you shouldn’t have.”

“How did you ever find this?”

Its No. 1 suggestion: “I really don’t deserve this.”

But if things get truly desperate, Womens Focus threw this response in too: “I love it, but I am concerned my co-workers will be jealous.”

Wrap-Up: It’s been a busy year for the local American Red Cross chapter. Its latest one-year--statistics: 775 people assisted with housing, meals, or clothing stemming from 142 separate disasters within the county. After the latest rains, it assisted 59 adults and 13 children.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com