The mud clung to decimated houses like a memory, thick and unyielding, refusing to let the Forest Falls resident Olin Richey and several of his neighbors forget the afternoon that the sky opened and their world changed.
In the desolation that followed a torrential rain on Thursday, Sept. 18, causing massive flooding in several southern California communities including Oak Glen, Potato Canyon and Forest Falls, the scattered chapters of lives paused, plans were undone, and the slow, communal work of recovery commenced.
The storm had brought the worst heartache in Barstow on Friday: A 2-year-old boy was found dead some 20 hours after the toddler became separated from his father in a wash after their car was swept into a channel.
On Saturday, emergency crews continued to assess the damage from the mouth of Forest Falls at Highway 38 into the canyon.
For the 20 years he has lived in Forest Falls, Richey said, he has never seen such heavy runoff from the mountain. Nor had he ever seen residents prepare for a storm with such grim purpose.
Richey, the lead pastor at Calimesa Worship Center, and his wife Jessica began their Saturday morning by sorting through the mud, rocks and downed logs.
An avalanche of mud created a seven-foot bog, obliterating the back facade of Richey’s dwelling. Dense muck now rested deep in the home office and garage. Above, the home resembled a deadly game of “Jenga,” with pieces of the entire home missing.
The room of their 15-year-old daughter, Victoria, now lacked a proper structural foundation and could collapse at any moment. Instead of an idyllic driveway, a swamp, with cereal boxes, crafts, an array of colorful puzzle pieces and a photo of the actor Pedro Pascal – a current obsession of the teenager – was tangled in the mire.
The home is now “red-tagged” by San Bernardino County, with a bright red notice near the front door, informing the family that the house is unsafe. The pastor estimates that rebuilding efforts will take three months. Maybe longer. He said that he has no choice but to take time off from his pastoral duties to focus on reconstruction endeavors.
Olin Richey, 51, said San Bernardino County took preventive measures by installing K-rails and M-rails along both sides of the property near the entrance of Valley of the Falls Drive and Canyon Drive, next to Prospect Creek.
The mayhem arrived anyway.
“You can’t contain it, and you really can’t prepare for it,” Richey said. He recalled his daughter pleading with her family to evacuate. Similar destruction befell the family in 2022 — a mountain community risk, he knows. The mental toll on Victoria weighs heavy.
“She just sat at the bottom of the driveway, and she’s like, ‘Mom, this is the only place I know. I don’t know how to leave it, but I don’t know if I can go back,’ ” Jessica Richey said.
Two miles up the road, deeper into the mountain community, a chaotic mix of rocks, trees, and mud encroached upon the road’s median. There sits the Elkhorn General Store. Veronica Hampton, 51, is a clerk who minds the shop on the weekends. She calls it Forrest Falls’ “downtown center.” More importantly, she thinks, is that Elkhorn serves as a sort of communal lifeline.
“We try to stay open if it’s safe, so we can give people supplies if they’re stuck up here,” Hampton said. Despite the fires, snowstorms and floods, Hampton says the community sticks together.
“I think that’s the biggest thing. When we come here, we say, ‘What do you need? What’s going on? How are your pets?’” said Hampton, as a young boy entered the general mart.
Less than a mile from Elkhorn, nestled on the side of the road, is the Forest Falls Seventh-day Adventist Church. The congregation is small. On a good day, 50 people attend the Saturday service. Church leader Carl Imthurn, 68, says Forest Falls makes the news on a regular basis for all the wrong reasons.
He admitted, “We’re living in the wilderness. That’s just the bottom line; there are fires. It’s a geologically active area. We have earthquakes. We’re in a valley. We get every so often, torrential rains, which cause mudslides.”
That fact still doesn’t change the reality that the aftermath of these events is ruinous to residents, Imthurn added.
“You don’t want life to go on as if nothing happened, because it doesn’t. It can’t. We want to acknowledge it, both within our our church body, and to the community at large,” he said.
The church leader took a beat, with tears welling in his eyes, and a quiet understanding dawned on him.
“It brings people closer together.”
Members of Olin Richey’s congregation arrived to help assess the havoc. Olin, his son and daughter, and a church member detached a broken garage door. It has been replaced three times due to events like this. A fourth is planned.
To the Richeys, there is no other home. Together, they built the home while Jessica was pregnant with their second child. As Olin Richey continued to work through debris, he paused to reflect on a message on his dirty forearms. On his right, part of Exodus 14:14 reads: “The Lord will fight for you.” On his left: “You need only be still.”
In life junctures that bring wreckage, he clings to these words.
“It’s our faith, man. You want to know the bottom line: Why would you come back? Because we believe that God will protect us. We did it last time. We’ll do it again,” Olin Richey said.
2-year-old boy found dead after family car swept into Barstow channel
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