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U.S. NEWSFriday 12 January 2018

Hopes of finding survivors drop after California mudslides

Large rocks and mud are shown in front of a house in Montecito, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018. ert, who feared two of his often far away from a
neighbors were among the home, and used that infor-
Hundreds of rescue workers slogged through knee-deep ooze and used long poles to probe for dead and turned out to be mation to guess where oth-
right in at least one case. er victims might have end-
bodies Thursday as the search dragged on for victims of the mudslides that slammed this wealthy “It’s emotional for me to ed up as the surging mud
say this, but I think they’re carried or buried them.
coastal town. gone.” The air smelled of The disaster, touched off by
sewage and ash as more heavy rain, took many ho-
(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) than a dozen firefighters meowners by surprise early
climbed through rubble in Tuesday, despite evacua-
By CHRIS WEBER the search for the missing 3 to 89 were confirmed the backyard of a mansion tion orders and warnings is-
that had been torn apart. sued days in advance that
BRIAN MELLEY became an increasingly dead, and eight others Some rescuers used poles mudslides were possible
to probe the muck for bod- because recent wildfires in
Associated Press desperate exercise Thurs- were unaccounted for. ies, while others waded the hills had stripped away
chest-deep in the mire. Two vegetation that normally
MONTECITO, Calif. (AP) — day, with growing doubts “They’re not going to find Labrador retrievers swam holds soil in place.
around a debris-filled swim- As the rainwater made its
More than two full days af- about whether anyone survivors anymore. They’re ming pool, trying to pick up way downhill with gathering
any scent. “At this moment, force, it pried boulders from
ter mudslides ravaged the would be found alive. Sev- going to find bodies in the we are still looking for live the ground and picked up
victims,” Santa Barbara fire trees and other debris that
coastal town of Montecito, enteen people from ages mud,” said David Wein- Capt. Gary Pitney said. But flattened homes, cars and
he confessed: “The likeli- carried at least one body a
hood is increasing that we’ll mile away.
be finding bodies, not survi- The disaster was already
vors. You have to start ac- unfolding when Santa Bar-
cepting the reality of that.” bara County officials sent
He noted that one survivor out their first cellphone alert
pulled from the muck ear- at 3:50 a.m. County emer-
lier in the week was suffer- gency manager Jeff Gater
ing from hypothermia after said officials decided not
just an hour. to send one sooner out of
Crews marked places concern it might not be
where bodies were found, taken seriously.q

US cold snap was a freak of nature, quick analysis finds

By SETH BORENSTEIN ral or more likely to hap- Caribbean and the French years. In the early 1900s, The study, based on ob-
AP Science Writer pen because of climate floods. it happened about once servations and statistics,
WASHINGTON (AP) — Con- change. “It was very definitely every 17 years. Climate did not find evidence for
sider this cold comfort: A The cold snap that gripped strange, especially now,” change has made such a popular scientific theory
quick study of the brutal the East Coast and Mid- said study co-author Gabri- cold spells less common that links melting Arctic
American cold snap found west region was a rarity that el Vecchi of Princeton Uni- and less intense, the group sea ice to blasts of cold
that the Arctic blast really bucks the warming trend, versity. A century ago “it said. air escaping the top of the
wasn’t global warming but said researcher Claudia wouldn’t have been that That finding agrees with world.
a freak of nature. Tebaldi of the National strange. Things like this are earlier studies, said Universi- The theory, which is still
Frigid weather like the two- Center for Atmospheric Re- becoming stranger.” ty of Georgia meteorology debated by scientists but
week cold spell that be- search and the private or- The study by the World professor Marshall Shep- gaining credence among
gan around Christmas is ganization Climate Central. Weather Attribution ana- herd, who wasn’t part of many, is based on pressure
15 times rarer than it was a The same team had con- lyzed weather records dat- the study. changes and other factors
century ago, according to nected several weather ing back to 1880 and found “I think the public frenzy that cause the jet stream
a team of international sci- events last year to man- the cold weather that hit over the recent cold snap to plunge and weather sys-
entists who does real-time made global warming in- a swath of the U.S. from illustrated that we are tems to get stuck. But the
analyses to see if extreme cluding Hurricane Harvey Maine to Minnesota tends less acclimated to such latest analysis didn’t find
weather events are natu- that battered the U.S. and to happen once every 250 events,” he said in an email. such evidence.q