Monday, December 29, 2003
Three or four more inches of rain are expected by Tuesday night.
COMBINED DISPATCHES
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- The caretaker of a mountain campsite buried in a fatal Christmas Day mudslide in Southern California's San Bernardino Mountains was not authorized to hold any large gatherings at the facility, a church official said Sunday.
The number of deaths from the disaster at the Greek Orthodox camp mounted to 12 Sunday as five more bodies were recovered. Two other people died in another mudslide Thursday at a campground about 5 miles away.
"It's been several days, and our hopes are not high of finding people alive," said Chip Patterson, spokesman for the San Bernardino County sheriff's department. "We may never find everyone."
A baby boy and a teenage boy were still unaccounted for.
Twenty-eight people were believed to have been celebrating Christmas at the camp when boulders, trees and 12-foot walls of mud crashed into the camp in Waterman Canyon. Fourteen of them were rescued.
The Rev. John Bakas, dean of St. Sophia Cathedral of Los Angeles, said Jorge Monzon, who had lived at the camp with his family since 1997, knew he was not allowed to throw parties at the year-round retreat.
"He only had a little apartment there with a living room, two bedrooms and a kitchen," Bakas said. "There was never any authority to bring in the numbers who were there. ... He knew anytime we had any groups up there they had to be supervised."
The ban on unauthorized gatherings, Bakas said, was part of a long-standing church policy governing use of the camp.
Preparation
Three to four more inches of rain are expected by Tuesday night. A 30-mile swath of mountainside scorched by this fall's wildfires is especially vulnerable to flash flooding, said San Bernardino Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Tracey Martinez.
Fire stations were handing out sandbags, but supplies were quickly diminishing.
"We need to make sure folks realize that," Martinez said. "Now is the time to prepare."
Two children washed away from the St. Sophia Camp were found tangled in debris more than four miles below, in a cement catch basin in downtown San Bernardino, said Patterson.
Two women and a man, all in their 40s, were found closer to the camp in the San Bernardino Mountains. It took a bulldozer and other heavy equipment to find those bodies in deep mud.
Identities of the victims found Sunday were not immediately known.
Patterson said crews would resume the search this morning.
Authorities said the children found Sunday were a 7- to 9-year-old girl and a 12- to 14-year-old boy.
Worship service
About 200 people attended a service honoring the victims Sunday at the Church of God Prophecy in San Bernardino, which many of those killed or missing had attended. Many of the victims also were immigrants from Guatemala, the Rev. Emilio Ruedas said.
Many cried quietly at the evangelical church, where worshippers swayed, waved their hands, sang in Spanish, and shouted "Amen" and "Hallelujah." One woman screamed and sobbed before collapsing in her chair during one song and was escorted out several minutes later, visibly shaken.
Two bodies recovered Saturday near the camp chapel were identified Sunday as belonging to a girl about 7 to 10 years old and a man in his 30s.
Other victims have been identified as 11-year-old Jose Pablo Navarro of San Bernardino and his 13-year-old cousin, Ivan Navarro of Fontana, and Ramon Meza, 30, of San Bernardino.