Mud Tears Through Cabins in Crestline Neighborhood

All that remained of Brandi Rigsby’s little wood cabin were piles of splintered wood and bits of furniture in the street -- evidence of the flash flood and mudslide that tore through a Crestline neighborhood Sunday night.

Despite the destruction, Rigsby, a CHP dispatcher, said she was fortunate. She and her 22-month-old son, Nicholas, recently moved to her parents’ house in Cottonwood so she could attend nursing school.

“Thank goodness we weren’t there. I guess it happened so quickly -- if I had been there with my son, who knows what would have happened,” she said. “It could have turned into a much sadder situation.”

Rigsby’s cabin was one of two homes destroyed by Sunday night’s torrent. Just over a year ago, the neighborhood narrowly escaped the deadly wildfires that tore through the San Bernardino Mountains community when the flames stopped at the ridgeline nearby.

Seele Creek, normally a meandering mountain stream, became a raging waterway during the weekend rainstorms, sending mud, trees and water slamming into the 100 block of Dart Canyon Road.

Rigsby, who had lived in the remote mountain town for seven years before temporarily moving to her parents’ home in August, said she was at the house about two weeks ago, dealing with water damage from pipes. She learned about the mudslide Monday morning.

“My neighbor called me and told me that my house was gone,” said Rigsby, 36. “There’s not much I can do right now -- it’s basically leveled.”

Chief William Bagnell of the Crest Forest Fire Protection District said he had never seen such destruction.

“I’ve been up here nearly nine years as fire chief, and we’ve never had a mudslide like this,” he said.

“The mountain generally handles water pretty well, [but] the creeks weren’t designed for the kind of water we had coming through them last night.”

In addition to the two destroyed homes, two more may be damaged beyond repair and several others were moderately damaged. At least two vehicles were thrown against trees and buried in mud, and there were natural gas leaks and downed power lines in the area Sunday night.

It’s not the first time Rigsby has had to deal with hardship caused by Mother Nature. During the 2003 wildfires, she was forced to evacuate for three weeks because of the proximity of the flames and the dry, dead trees surrounding the community.

Still, she said, she loves Crestline and plans to rebuild. She is awaiting an assessment by her insurance agent.

“I hope it’s covered ... or I’m up a creek,” she said. “My church is there and many of my friends are there, and many friends from the Highway Patrol are there. It’s my town.”

Three stout oaks were all that saved a 1939 vacation cabin across the street owned by Dan Nelson of Moreno Valley. The trees stood firm against a torrent of mud, tree limbs and a gray Chevrolet Silverado truck that came to rest on its side against the oaks.

The yard was littered with the remains of Rigsby’s cabin -- jars of peanut butter and jelly, a television, toys.

Part of Nelson’s back deck, which overlooks the raging creek, was washed away, and mud got into the cabin, but other than that, the structure was untouched.

Without the oaks, “this place would have been gone -- I’m really lucky,” Nelson said. But “if it falls down or burns down or washes away, I’ll build again.”