Page 8 - Thick Mud News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Spewing steam, asphalt, and debris several stories high. covering famed 5th avenue, and the cars on it with thick mud. >> you can get an idea of how much steam is floating through midtown. >> reporter: first responders trying to evacuate the streets as the plume billows just feet from them. >> as soon as i heard a loud explosion, i just booked it and ran. >> reporter: officials say at 6:39 this morning, a 20-inch, 86-year-old steam pipe ruptured, leaving five people with minor injuries. creating a large crater in the street. you can see how close this car came to direct impact. >> thank god th...

Honestly didn't believe that it was happening again. >> reporter: the last time this happened in 2016 there were two people who lost their lives in those floods. and today, this is what busy owners are coming back to. thick mud is everywhere. entire walls are gone. and a couple of cars are still dangling from where the water left them. and sadly, this is becoming a familiar experience for a lot of these folks who decided to rebuild after the flooding two years ago. and now, they are facing that same tough decision. >> things were looking up and 97% of the town was back open. portalli down the ...

Loved ones. >> we just go down the creek and see what we can find. >> reporter: this man's mother was swept away while clinging to the back door of her home. >> she was in the voluntary evacuation. >> reporter: what made this mudslide so horrendous, the steepest of the terrain. look up there. the thomas fire burns above montecito. it goes from 3,000 feet to sea level in just several miles. the water came off the ashy hillsides and just poured right through here. it had a high velocity, as they call it. and you can look right over here and you will see where the waters just a mile from the ocea...

Acres. many families grieve while others simply host their loved ones will find their way home. >> you've got to be scared. i've been in different situations and that's the scariest. it comes in with the speed of water but has the mass of earth. it smothers. when the water leaves, when the fire leaves, you now have this new layer of completely smothering, destructive, deadly mud. it is really scary. they are overwhelmed. >> i can't believe this video captures people being pulled out from that mud that seems like lava. >> can they get everywhere. no, you can't travel in that stuff. it is is the...

Paul has more on the harrowing rescues. >> reporter: the wall of mud came in the middle of the night. >> just obliterated this little neighborhood. turned houses into matchsticks. blew them off the foundations. >> reporter: survivors became heroes. >> we heard a little baby. we got down and found a little baby. we got it out, got the mud out of its mouth. i'm hoping it's okay. they took it right to the hospital. a baby four feet down in nowhere, under the mud, in the rocks. who knows what else is out there. >> reporter: there were many more in need out there, like this family surrounded by flo...