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- A 2-year-old boy was found dead after floodwaters swept away his vehicle in Barstow as tropical storm remnants battered Southern California Thursday.
- Mudslides triggered by the late-summer storm system trapped multiple drivers on Cedar Falls Road for hours and buried homes in Oak Glen.
- State Route 38 through San Bernardino Mountains remains closed Friday with no reopening timeline as crews work to clear debris flows.
A late summer storm system brought heavy rain to parts of the Southland, triggered mudslides in San Bernardino and washed away a vehicle in the Inland Empire, killing a 2-year-old boy.
The downpour arrived Thursday afternoon and dumped several inches of water across San Bernardino County’s mountains and foothills, creating isolated pockets of danger and chaos that first responders scrambled to reach.
Brandon Padilla Aguilera, 26 was driving with his 2-year-old son Xavier Padilla Aguilera when floodwaters pushed their car off the roadway in Barstow on Thursday evening, according to authorities. The pair were swept out of the vehicle and carried north by the wash.
The father was found that evening on an island created by the floodwaters, but his son was nowhere to be seen. After more than 20 hours of searching, the boy’s body was found Friday afternoon in the San Bernardino County Flood Control channel south of the Mojave River, the Barstow Police Department said.
“Our hearts go out to the family and loved ones during this unimaginably difficult time,” the department said in a statement.
Xavier’s death occurred amid a late summer monsoon storm system — remnants of Tropical Storm Mario — that brought sweltering heat and unpredictable showers and thunderstorms to the region.
For the first time in months, widespread rainfall is drenching the Los Angeles area as a strong band of moisture from a dissipated tropical storm moves north.
In Forest Falls, Anton Sommer’s cellphone was down to 1% Friday and he said it was unclear when the power would be restored to his neighborhood, one of several mountain communities affected by mudslides.
“Almost all my neighbors have minor damage,” he said in a short phone interview.
Sommer said mud debris poured into neighborhood backyards, toppling at least one residential propane tank and triggering a gas leak. Vehicles were submerged in mud and photos shared on social media showed leaning utility poles and large rocks, branches and roots covering two-lane roads.
Sommer, who lives off Torrey Pines Drive, said his neighbor’s home, which is three doors down, was hit the hardest. The home sits just off Slide Creek.
“The guy barely hung on when the mud came through,” he said of his neighbor.
To the north at Camp Cedar Falls, parts of Cedar Falls Road were buried in a mudslide Thursday, trapping drivers who had to wait for hours to be freed, according to a Caltrans District 8 Facebook post.
Other county residents were caught outside.
“One of the residents we actually talked to, he was pinned against his house and he literally thought he was going to die,” San Bernardino County Fire Department spokesperson Shawn Millerick told KTLA. “So he said he couldn’t believe how fast the debris and the mud got to that house, with the precipitation we had yesterday.
“And that’s a message to everyone: That when you’re in these areas of burn scars and canyons and places we know have debris flows, you’re not going to hear it coming or see it coming,” Millerick added. “It’s just going to be upon you because this is a freight train of water.”
On Thursday, thunderstorms rolled through the region, dropping about 4.41 inches of rain on Running Springs, 2.55 inches on Big Bear Lake North Shore, 2.5 inches on Fawnskin and 0.54 inches on Oak Glen, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Lauren Villafane.
Thursday’s downpour triggered a debris flow between Oak Glen and Forest Falls that carried trees, mud and boulders, according to San Bernardino County Supervisor Dawn Rowe.
In Oak Glen, Birch Creek overflowed, with video showing a river of mud running by the Oak Glen Steakhouse. Several homes were impacted; it isn’t safe yet for damage assessment teams to go out to survey the damage, according to Rowe.
“It’s really thick, sloppy and muddy and all the loaders and excavators are working to clear the channel,” Rowe said. “Residents are safe. I don’t know any incidents of injuries to human beings.”
Casey Geib, general manager of the Oak Glen Steakhouse, told CBS News that he and his co-workers dug their cars out of the debris.
“I thought we would never see mud at this level again,” he said. “This time was a lot more aggressive than the last.”
On Friday, the roads in Forest Falls were cleared after mudslides impacted a couple of areas and nearly trapped residents, Rowe said. Animals have been killed, others reported lost. Two homes have been red-tagged.
“I’m looking at storm clouds rolling in right now,” Rowe told The Times. “This burn scar area is from the El Dorado fire and I think we all thought there was enough regrowth. These boulders are as big as cars and if there is an evacuation order, I would love our residents to take that as seriously as they can and get out so they remain safe.”
The mudslide that hit Cedar Falls Road overnight Thursday included parts of an old burn scar from the El Dorado fire, according to Caltrans.
“The debris flow is from the El Dorado fire, and that mountain peak has an extremely high elevation that is out of reach for even the most experienced contractors,” Caltrans said in a Facebook post. “That fire caused severe terrain damage that has forever changed the scope of that area.”
State Route 38 through the San Bernardino Mountains was closed Friday from Valley of the Falls to the bottom of South Fork, according to a California Highway Patrol social media post. About 10 people in six or seven cars were stranded on Highway 38 near Jenks Lake early Friday, but the agency was working to get them free.
Near Potato Canyon Road in Oak Glen, another mudslide surrounded nearby homes in mud.
Oak Glen resident Denise Romo told ABC7 that a mudslide rushed down the hillside after the storm hit.
“It kind of sounded like an earthquake was coming,” she said. “When I opened my kitchen window, I just see the first wave of mud, and it already had trees, mailboxes, a bunch of debris.”
The wet weather is expected to fizzle out through the weekend, but forecasts say that there’s the potential for another round of tropical weather next week.
A flood watch warning was in effect for portions of Central California, including the south end of the Sierra foothills, the Kern River Valley and the Mojave Desert, until 5 p.m. Friday, according to the weather service. Debris flows could occur in the Kern County mountains and desert, where the Borel burn scar is.
The National Weather Service said more rain could arrive Sunday, with a 25% chance of rain over the San Bernardino Mountains and the greatest chances over the mountains in San Diego and Riverside counties, according to Villafane. The San Bernardino Mountains could get about a quarter of an inch of rain between Sunday and Monday.
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