People living in Montecito, including many celebrities, have been ordered to evacuate their homes after a fierce winter storm pounded the Montecito, California area with heavy rains, resulting in flooding and dangerous mudslides. On Monday, Santa Barbara County officials announced mandatory “immediate evacuation” orders for the entire Montecito community, an area that includes a number of big-name celebrities including Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — who moved to the area amid their exit as working royals — Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Katy Perry, Chris Pratt, Ariana Grande, and Rob Lowe, among others.
On Monday, the area was hit with another round of storms that brought at least at 8 inches of rainfall over the course of just 12 hours, according to the National Weather Service, per CBS News. The storms not only left thousands without power, but turned streets and highways into rushing rivers, toppled trees, and resulted in mudslides. The latest round of storms brought the death toll from 12 to 14, with Santa Barbara officials ordering immediate evacuations Monday afternoon for all Montecito residents and residents of Sycamore Canyon in Santa Barbara. The evacuation order includes “all 15 zones of the Montecito Community, all Toro Canyon & Padaro Lane residents in the Carpinteria-Summerland Fire Protection District & all residents of Sycamore Canyon in the City of SB and Montecito.” An immediate evacuation order was also issued for residents of the Serena Park area in Carpinteria.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Amid the storms, DeGeneres took to social media Monday to show the devastation left behind and the current dangerous conditions residents of the area are facing. In a video shared to Twitter, the former talk show host could be seen standing near the bank of a raging river, telling her fans that “the stream next to our house never flows, ever. It’s probably about nine feet up. It could go another two feet up. We have horses ready to evacuate.” DeGeneres went on to share, “This is crazy, on the five year anniversary,” referencing the deadly floods and mudslides that killed 23 people in 2018.She wrote in the caption to the post, “Montecito is under mandatory evacuation. We are on higher ground so they asked us to shelter in place.”
Amid the heavy rains and devastation, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Sunday. Amid the evacuation orders, evacuation centers have opened in the area for residents fleeing their homes. Per NBC News, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the decision to evacuate nearly 10,000 people was “based on the continuing high rate of rainfall with no indication that that is going to change before nightfall.”
