Ellen DeGeneres 'Heartbroken' Fleeing Home Before Mudslide

Ellen DeGeneres held back tears as she told her studio audience how she and wife Portia de Rossi [...]

By Libby Birk

Ellen DeGeneres held back tears as she told her studio audience how she and wife Portia de Rossi fled their Montecito home following mandatory evacuations due to devastating mudslides.

The mudslides have claimed at least 17 lives with eight people still reported missing as of Thursday morning after heavy rains poured over the same area of California that experienced devastating wildfires less than a month ago.

"Usually, we're grateful for rain, especially in California, but not after the largest fire in the history of California," DeGeneres said on Thursday's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

"Sunday night, Portia and I got a call that we're under mandatory evacuation again with most of the community of Montecito. So again, we evacuated because they feared mudslides. After everything we've been through, I think a lot of people thought they were just being overly cautious but exactly what they feared happened," she said.

"The rain triggered massive mudslides. Massive. Neighborhoods were just completely wiped out. Mud took everything with it. It took houses off their foundation. You don't know the power of a mudslide," she said, explaining that the photos don't do it justice.

"A lot of people are missing. People who are in their homes waiting to be rescued, they don't know what's happening because there's no power, there's no water. People are trying to locate missing people. It's basically search and rescue right now," DeGeneres continued.

She then thanked the first responders and firefighters who are "working tirelessly on our behalf."

"If you've never been there, Montecito is a small town," she said. "It's less than 10,000 people, it has two public schools, family-owned businesses. It's a tight-knit community so everyone kind of knows everyone."

"I work in LA, but I consider Montecito my home. I live there, Oprah lives there," she went on. "It's not just a wealthy community, it's filled with a lot of different types of people from all backgrounds. And there are families missing, there are people who are missing family members. They're finding people and bodies."

DeGeneres then FaceTimed with Oprah Winfrey, who also lives in the community. Winfrey was showing the damage on her own property.

"I was walking down here and all of my neighbors' homes are gutted. I'm standing right now still in a lot of mud but not as much as yesterday," she said. "I walked out back, you know, where we share a fence line and the neighbors out back, their houses are gone. It's as devastating as can be."

She also spoke to some firefighters from the Ventura City Fire Department, interviewing them on the fly about the search and rescue operation.

"It's devastating. We've lost so many lives and it's a tiny little community and nobody would've expected, certainly, I did not, that after we survived the fires and the rain came, who would've expected we have this devastation again with the mudslides, and so soon?" she asked. "But we're going to do what we do. We're going to come together and we're going to do what great Americans do all the time. We're going to help each other. We're going to help each other out wherever needed."

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