San Dimas Rescue Team Scales Back Search of Creek

After a series of torrential rains in 1969, the west fork of San Dimas Creek became so swollen that it washed away a dozen cabins in the isolated settlement along its banks in the Angeles National Forest.

“But we never lost a man,” said Harold Jackson, 74, a retired firefighter who for 50 years has lived in one of the nearly 100 cabins along the creek. “We’ve lost pets up here, lost lots of stuff. But never lost a person. Not until now.”

After two days scouring the area, the San Dimas Search and Rescue Team scaled back its efforts to find Francis Lee McCall, 59, who left his cabin Monday night to help a neighbor whose car was stuck in the raging creek. McCall was swept into the roiling water, and authorities said they were pessimistic about finding him alive.

He would be the 10th casualty statewide of Monday’s storm, which also claimed the lives of two California Highway Patrol officers whose car fell into a hole caused by a highway washout in San Luis Obispo County. Two Pomona College students died when a tree fell on their automobile.

McCall’s apparent drowning stunned his neighbors, a largely self-reliant bunch ranging from retirees to professionals who telecommute to work from their cabins in the leafy bottom of San Dimas Canyon. Mac, as everyone called him, had lived in the area about 10 years and was considered an able outdoorsman, though neighbors said he was suffering from an unknown disability and did not have the full use of his right side.

Residents of the cluster of cabins about four miles north of the sprawl of the San Gabriel Valley say they respect each other’s privacy, but they band together in times of need. They belong to a homeowners association, which is responsible for maintaining water service and the roads. If the pipes need to be repaired or the roads cleared, everyone gets together on a weekend and takes care of the problem, residents say.

“This is just a little community,” said Jackson’s son, Chris, 40. “We all have to look out for each other.”

That’s what McCall was doing Monday night. Another resident, who neighbors said had only recently moved to the area, got stuck trying to drive her car across the rising creek, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Dave Rush said.

McCall apparently saw her and drove his truck into the creek, pushing her car out, said Rush, a member of the San Dimas Search and Rescue Team. But McCall’s truck stalled, and when he jumped into the creek to get away, he was whisked downstream, futilely grabbing at branches.

The west fork of the creek is usually only a trickle. But after Monday’s downpour it was roaring at about 25 mph, more than four feet deep. Even Thursday, when the search and rescue team reduced its efforts to flyovers and routine patrol, the waters of the west fork and the main leg of San Dimas Creek were too rough and boulder-strewn to search by boat or diver, Rush said.

“With all the runoff coming out of the tributaries, it’s still keeping these rivers running pretty fast,” said Deputy Dave Smail of the search and rescue team.

Authorities will renew their search Saturday, when the water is expected to be calmer.

Neighbors described McCall as one of the area’s more private residents, a polite man who designed air-conditioning systems. He enjoyed hunting and split his time between the canyon and another cabin in Idaho.

But residents said that even if McCall kept to himself, they knew they could count on him.

“He was the nicest guy in the world,” said one friend, who would not give his name. “If anybody ever went to his house, he was there for you.”

The swollen creek also swept away two trucks Monday night, and the search team had to rescue two other residents who tried to go around the stream Wednesday morning and were stuck for six hours on a disintegrating hillside.

Residents said that during the storm, “rocks the size of Volkswagens” rumbled through the raging fork and into the main creek, which spills into San Dimas Reservoir.

Jerry Gode, who grew up in the canyon, said veterans know what to do when the rain pounds and the creek rises. “You just hole up and ride it out,” he said.

But McCall was the sort of man who wouldn’t hesitate to help a neighbor, despite the peril, Gode said. “He was a real gentleman.”