MUDSLIDE MASSACRE California mudslide leaves 17 people dead and 300 trapped as Oprah Winfrey wades through her swamped $50m estate

AT LEAST 17 people have been killed in the horrific Californian mudslides which ripped through homes of the rich and famous and left 300 people trapped.

The deadly mud surge smashed the wealthy neighbourhood of Montecito - with Oprah Winfrey filmed wading through her devastated £37million estate.
Rescue teams have warned the death toll is likely to rise as they continue to pull bodies from the sludge, and confirmed 17 remain missing.

By the early hours of this morning, some 500 searchers - including local prison inmates - had covered about 75 percent of the inundated area in the search for victims.

They slogged through ooze and poked long holes into the mud on Wednesday as they searched for more victims.

It is thought the horror slide was able to hit residential homes because recent wildfires had stripped away vegetation and trees which would have blocked its path.

Terrified locals took to their rooftops as torrents of mud swept cars away.

Flash floods followed four and half inches of rain (11cm) at around 3am local time on Tuesday.

Inspecting the damage, chat show legend Oprah, who is tipped to run for president, said: "There used to be a fence right here. That's my neighbour's house. Devastated."

It is thought warnings were ignored due to the number of wildfire incidents with emergency services describing an 'evacuation fatigue'.

"The best way I can describe it is, it looked like a World War One battlefield," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said at a news conference.

Talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres posted a picture of a mud and debris-filled street outside her Montecito home on Twitter, saying she did not yet know the condition of the house itself.

Former tennis star Jimmy Connors and his wife, Patti, had to be rescued evacuated by helicopter from their home.

Emergency officials have admitted they didn't send out flood alerts to cellphones until AFTER the deadly Montecito mudslides had already started.

Jeff Gater, Santa Barbara County's emergency manager, said a text alert was not sent until 3.50am on Tuesday, by which point tons of mud was already flooding towards homes.

Gater said the alert system was not used earlier because he was concerned that people wouldn't take it seriously after a slew of similar fire warnings before Xmas.

"If you tell everyone to get out, everyone get out, the next time people won't listen," he told the LA Times. "If you cry wolf, people stop listening."

Authorities are working on an evacuation plan to airlift the hundreds of stranded residents to safety.

Photos posted on social media shows people waist-deep in mud within their living rooms.

One image showed a 14-year-old girl being pulled from the wreckage of a collapsed house.

"I thought I was dead there for a minute," the rescued teen, later identified as Lauren Cantin, told rescuers, according to NBC News.

She was discovered when firefighters using dogs in the search heard a scream.

A man has also revealed how he dug a baby out from four feet of mud after the massive mudslides hit
Berkeley Johnson said he and his wife, Karen, climbed up to their roof at around 3am after boulders and mud came crashing through their home, sending mud eight feet up their staircase.

"I heard the rumbling of the rocks and I looked up and the river and the trees were coming down like chum, chum, chum," Johnson described.

"We ran into the house and right then the boulders busted through our house."

After the flooding receded, the couple said they climbed down and heard a baby crying near their neighbour's house.

Tearful Johnson said he had to dig four feet down to rescue the baby. The baby was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

"We don't know where it came from but we got it out, got the mud out of its mouth. I hope it's okay. I'm glad we got it out but who knows what else is out there," he said.

News channel KSBY has reached out to hospital officials for information on the baby's condition and will provide an update when that information becomes available

Witness Peter Hartmann who saw rescuers revive the toddler who lay unresponsive in the mud said: "It was a freaky moment to see her just covered in mud. It was scary."
The first confirmed death was Roy Rohter, a former real estate broker who founded St. Augustine Academy in Ventura.
The Catholic school's headmaster, Michael Van Hecke, announced the death and said Rohter's wife was injured by the mudslide.

TV star Oprah provided Instagram videos of her feet wading in deep mud in her backyard, and a rescue helicopter flying overhead.

"This is how deep the mud is," she said, sloshing through the muck up to her knees.

"And the house in back is gone.

"What a day! Praying for our community again in Santa Barbara."