Sidebar to "Stormy Weather"

Death In The Cuyama River

El Niño Claims Two CHP Officers

By Nancy J. Rigg

It was about 2:30 in the morning on February 24th, when California Highway Patrol officers Rick Stovall and Britt Irvine received a call about a disabled truck somewhere on a lonely stretch of California State Highway 166. With more than forty days of El Niño-driven rain having saturated the land, the officers kept watch for the usual mud and rock slides which always plague the two-lane mountain road after a succession of storms. The night was clear and moonless. In the impenetrable darkness, the only thing visible was a short stretch of highway wanly illuminated by the headlights of their patrol vehicle. Suddenly a swirling mist swallowed up what little visibility there had been. Without warning, the highway ahead vanished, and Officers Stovall and Irvine plunged into the raging, flood-swollen Cuyama River.

In anticipation of El Niño, CHP personnel had received flood awareness training from local swiftwater rescue teams, according to CHP Lt. Brian Hagler. "We wanted our personnel to know about the hazards involved and to not even attempt to perform rescues from swift water without the proper equipment and training," he explained. "Plus, if anyone got caught in the water, we wanted them to be familiar with self-rescue techniques." Unfortunately, no amount of preparation could have saved Officers Stovall and Irvine. Their patrol car flipped over and the roof was crushed as it smacked into the swirling mass of muddy water and was swallowed by the river.

For CHP dispatchers, who routinely encounter communications problems in the coastal mountains of California, maintaining intermittent contact with units in the field is not out of the ordinary. "The canyons have radio dead spots," explained CHP Communications Supervisor, Sandy Joyner, "but we were able to contact the patrol vehicle once or twice while the officers were en route, alerting them to a report that the eastbound lane of the highway had been washed out." The officers, who were heading west, acknowledged the report and continued up the canyon in search of the disabled truck.

For Pastor Bill Klein, traveling on Highway 166 at 2:30 in the morning is part of his nightly newspaper delivery routine. On February 24th, Klein's twelve-year old daughter, Stephanie, was helping him make deliveries. After weeks of torrential rainstorms, the crystal-clear night was a pleasant change of pace. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until Klein rounded a curve in the highway and noticed an eerie mist churning above the highway. Through the fog bank, the headlights of an on-coming vehicle were barely visible. "As the other car came towards us," Klein said, "suddenly it went straight down, right off the highway in front of me, which caused me to react and slam on my brakes." Klein's vehicle skidded sideways and stopped with its front right tire just over the edge of a forty-foot drop. Using four-wheel drive, he quickly maneuvered his vehicle back from the chasm, put on his emergency lights and grabbed a flashlight.

In the CHP Communications Center, after a half hour of failed attempts to get a status report from the patrol vehicle, Sandy Joyner said, "dispatchers had a gut feeling that something was wrong." They contacted the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and asked them to search the highway for the missing CHP patrol car.

At the edge of the washout, Bill Klein started running back and forth in front of the ever-increasing gap in the highway to prevent other cars from plunging into the churning water. "There was a big semi coming up from the west, so I ran around the cave-in and ran right at him," Klein said. "He was coming fast, right at me, and I was running towards him waving my flashlight. This was out in the middle of nowhere, so you can imagine what he was thinking. He stopped and I told him what had happened. I asked him to park his truck across the road with his signal lights blinking.

"As I was talking to him, I saw another car on the other side of the hole, coming up behind where my car was." The driver of the car "saw me running at him," Klein recounted, "and he tried to gun around me. He did not want to stop. And so I screamed at him, jumped in front of him, and did everything I could think of to get him to stop."

Klein's efforts to keep motorists from plunging into the chasm continued for over half an hour, with no emergency responders in sight. At least four motorists tried to blast past the makeshift barrier of semi-trailers straddling the roadway. "One guy got mad at me," Klein sighed. "He said he was going to be late. Well, I told him it was better to be late than dead." Fearing that no one had contacted authorities, Klein asked the other motorists to stay put while he drove back down the canyon to call 9-1-1. "That's when I left the scene," Klein said. "The sad part is that after I went back down the canyon, the first semi turned around and left, leaving the west side completely open and unprotected."

"Throughout this ordeal," Sandy Joyner said, "dispatchers continued to call the unit and got no response." When the Santa Barbara Sheriff's deputy arrived on scene, he, too, almost plunged into the river on the unprotected side of the washout. By this time, a 300' long chunk of highway had vanished. In the unfathomable darkness, nothing could be seen, and the only thing that could be heard was the thunderous roar of the torrent below. The deputy quickly summoned local search and rescue teams.

"Our engine company from Station 20 was the first emergency responder on scene," said Battalion Chief Mike Harkness, swiftwater rescue coordinator for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection-San Luis Obispo County Fire Department (CDF/County Fire). "The initial report was for a possible auto accident. On the way, they heard it could be a problem with the roadway, or could even be vehicles in the water. But still, in their minds, they were responding to a possible accident." According to Harkness, when the firefighters came on scene, an eerie dance of flashlight beams aimed into the washout was the only thing visible.

"It was pitch black," Harkness added, "foggy, and super noisy, because the water was way up." Within minutes firefighters spotted a man below in the river, clinging to the partially submerged cab of his big-rig. As the CDF/County Fire swiftwater rescue team got on scene and began to set up for a rope and boat rescue, the gray light of pre-dawn allowed helicopters from the CHP and Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department to penetrate the fog and fly up the canyon. "Our swiftwater folks were able to talk to the CHP ship," Harkness said, "and they made a fantastic helicopter rescue of the truck driver. They brought him over to the side where we bundled him up and got him into the ambulance. He had facial injuries, severe hypothermia, and had gotten thrashed around in the river."

Further downstream, firefighters spotted a second victim on a sandbar, with swift water coursing on either side of him. "At this point, we had no idea how many vehicles might be in the water, or how many people were missing," Harkness said. The helicopter crew from the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department rescued the second victim, who credited his survival to using self-rescue techniques learned during a white-water rafting expedition. "This was the best part of the day," Harkness sighed. "When you get down there, not knowing what you have, and you make two good, solid rescues, it was thrilling for everyone." Despite hopes that other rescues would quickly follow, the missing CHP officers were nowhere to be seen.

With agencies from two counties now involved in the complex and intensive search, CHP officers were sent to personally notify the families of the missing officers. According to Lt. Hagler, "The father of one officer, who is retired from the CHP, wanted to be on scene to observe. It was difficult, because our people are all hands-on, get-in-there-and-do-something type people. When there's nothing you can do but wait and watch, it's very frustrating." Hagler added that as the water began to recede, swiftwater rescuers finally spotted the tips of two wheels jutting up out of a sandbar which had been camouflaged by brush and debris.

"Initially, nobody could tell what had happened," Sandy Joyner said, "because the patrol car was buried in mud. Even when we located the vehicle, we weren't sure what the status of the officers was, whether they had gotten out of the vehicle and were waiting to be rescued, or they were out of the car doing rescue work somewhere downstream. We had no idea. It wasn't until several hours later that it was finally determined that our officers were victims of this incident."

The San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department's dive team worked along with the CDF/County Fire swiftwater rescue team to manage the grim, but vital, task of extracting the bodies of the CHP officers. "Not only was the vehicle upside down and buried in mud," Mike Harkness explained, "it was thoroughly impacted with mud. You would take one shovel-full of sand out, and two shovels-full would get sucked back in." This resulted in a "really long and tragic day," Harkness said.

Sgt. Pete Bayer of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department added that while they were extracting the CHP vehicle, another half-ton pickup was discovered, covered in mud and debris, with no one inside. Bayer speculated that the driver somehow got out of the vehicle before it filled with water and sank, but was swept to his death downstream. "We brought in canine teams," Bayer said, "unfortunately, we have not yet recovered the missing man."

Out of respect for the officers and their families, Harkness said that when it was time to remove the bodies from the patrol vehicle, the media was asked to leave. "This should always be a private moment," he said, "no matter who the victim is."

CHP Officer Ken Carroll, who works out of the Santa Maria office where Stovall and Irvine served, indicated that Stovall, who was married with two children, "died of head trauma when the vehicle flipped and crushed the top of the roof." Irvine, who was engaged, "was knocked unconscious and died of fresh-water drowning," Carroll added sadly.

Critical Incident Stress Management teams were quickly mobilized to work with emergency responders and CHP personnel, including the distressed dispatchers who had listened to the last words uttered by the officers before they disappeared. Unfortunately, no immediate crisis intervention was provided to the victims who were rescued, or to witnesses like Bill Klein, who has struggled to free his mind of the haunting image of the patrol vehicle's fatal plunge off the highway. "The headlights going straight down and the sound of the water is probably what sticks in my mind the most," Klein said. Downplaying his own lifesaving actions, he quietly added that, "Those officers died heroically. Seeing them saved my life, my daughter's life, and the lives of many others."

Although it is too soon for "lessons learned," both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties are contemplating developing multi-agency swiftwater rescue and flood safety awareness programs, similar to the countywide program implemented by public safety agencies in Los Angeles County. History is too often overlooked in arid areas like California, where riverbeds look like dry gulch much of the time. Records show that this same area of Highway 166 was washed out during the 1982-83 El Niño storms. Officer Carroll summed it up this way: "When there's extreme weather, extreme caution needs to be used on roads near waterways. I guarantee that everyone in this office is going to be a lot more careful out there from now on."

	Death In The Cuyama River El Niño Claims Two CHP Officers By Nancy J. Rigg


	It was about 2:30 in the morning on February 24th, when California Highway Patrol officers Rick Stovall and Britt Irvine received a call about a disabled truck somewhere on a lonely stretch of California State Highway 166. With more than forty days of El Niño-driven rain having saturated the land, the officers kept watch for the usual mud and rock slides which always plague the two-lane mountain road after a succession of storms. The night was clear and moonless. In the impenetrable darkness, the only thing visible was a short stretch of highway wanly illuminated by the headlights of their patrol vehicle. Suddenly a swirling mist swallowed up what little visibility there had been. Without warning, the highway ahead vanished, and Officers Stovall and Irvine plunged into the raging, flood-swollen Cuyama River. In anticipation of El Niño, CHP personnel had received flood awareness training from local swiftwater rescue teams, according to CHP Lt. Brian Hagler. "We wanted our personnel to know about the hazards involved and to not even attempt to perform rescues from swift water without the proper equipment and training," he explained. "Plus, if anyone got caught in the water, we wanted them to be familiar with self-rescue techniques." Unfortunately, no amount of preparation could have saved Officers Stovall and Irvine. Their patrol car flipped over and the roof was crushed as it smacked into the swirling mass of muddy water and was swallowed by the river. For CHP dispatchers, who routinely encounter communications problems in the coastal mountains of California, maintaining intermittent contact with units in the field is not out of the ordinary. "The canyons have radio dead spots," explained CHP Communications Supervisor, Sandy Joyner, "but we were able to contact the patrol vehicle once or twice while the officers were en route, alerting them to a report that the eastbound lane of the highway had been washed out." The officers, who were heading west, acknowledged the report and continued up the canyon in search of the disabled truck. For Pastor Bill Klein, traveling on Highway 166 at 2:30 in the morning is part of his nightly newspaper delivery routine. On February 24th, Klein's twelve-year old daughter, Stephanie, was helping him make deliveries. After weeks of torrential rainstorms, the crystal-clear night was a pleasant change of pace. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until Klein rounded a curve in the highway and noticed an eerie mist churning above the highway. Through the fog bank, the headlights of an on-coming vehicle were barely visible. "As the other car came towards us," Klein said, "suddenly it went straight down, right off the highway in front of me, which caused me to react and slam on my brakes." Klein's vehicle skidded sideways and stopped with its front right tire just over the edge of a forty-foot drop. Using four-wheel drive, he quickly maneuvered his vehicle back from the chasm, put on his emergency lights and grabbed a flashlight. In the CHP Communications Center, after a half hour of failed attempts to get a status report from the patrol vehicle, Sandy Joyner said, "dispatchers had a gut feeling that something was wrong." They contacted the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department and asked them to search the highway for the missing CHP patrol car. At the edge of the washout, Bill Klein started running back and forth in front of the ever-increasing gap in the highway to prevent other cars from plunging into the churning water. "There was a big semi coming up from the west, so I ran around the cave-in and ran right at him," Klein said. "He was coming fast, right at me, and I was running towards him waving my flashlight. This was out in the middle of nowhere, so you can imagine what he was thinking. He stopped and I told him what had happened. I asked him to park his truck across the road with his signal lights blinking. "As I was talking to him, I saw another car on the other side of the hole, coming up behind where my car was." The driver of the car "saw me running at him," Klein recounted, "and he tried to gun around me. He did not want to stop. And so I screamed at him, jumped in front of him, and did everything I could think of to get him to stop." Klein's efforts to keep motorists from plunging into the chasm continued for over half an hour, with no emergency responders in sight. At least four motorists tried to blast past the makeshift barrier of semi-trailers straddling the roadway. "One guy got mad at me," Klein sighed. "He said he was going to be late. Well, I told him it was better to be late than dead." Fearing that no one had contacted authorities, Klein asked the other motorists to stay put while he drove back down the canyon to call 9-1-1. "That's when I left the scene," Klein said. "The sad part is that after I went back down the canyon, the first semi turned around and left, leaving the west side completely open and unprotected." "Throughout this ordeal," Sandy Joyner said, "dispatchers continued to call the unit and got no response." When the Santa Barbara Sheriff's deputy arrived on scene, he, too, almost plunged into the river on the unprotected side of the washout. By this time, a 300' long chunk of highway had vanished. In the unfathomable darkness, nothing could be seen, and the only thing that could be heard was the thunderous roar of the torrent below. The deputy quickly summoned local search and rescue teams. "Our engine company from Station 20 was the first emergency responder on scene," said Battalion Chief Mike Harkness, swiftwater rescue coordinator for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection-San Luis Obispo County Fire Department (CDF/County Fire). "The initial report was for a possible auto accident. On the way, they heard it could be a problem with the roadway, or could even be vehicles in the water. But still, in their minds, they were responding to a possible accident." According to Harkness, when the firefighters came on scene, an eerie dance of flashlight beams aimed into the washout was the only thing visible. "It was pitch black," Harkness added, "foggy, and super noisy, because the water was way up." Within minutes firefighters spotted a man below in the river, clinging to the partially submerged cab of his big-rig. As the CDF/County Fire swiftwater rescue team got on scene and began to set up for a rope and boat rescue, the gray light of pre-dawn allowed helicopters from the CHP and Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department to penetrate the fog and fly up the canyon. "Our swiftwater folks were able to talk to the CHP ship," Harkness said, "and they made a fantastic helicopter rescue of the truck driver. They brought him over to the side where we bundled him up and got him into the ambulance. He had facial injuries, severe hypothermia, and had gotten thrashed around in the river." Further downstream, firefighters spotted a second victim on a sandbar, with swift water coursing on either side of him. "At this point, we had no idea how many vehicles might be in the water, or how many people were missing," Harkness said. The helicopter crew from the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department rescued the second victim, who credited his survival to using self-rescue techniques learned during a white-water rafting expedition. "This was the best part of the day," Harkness sighed. "When you get down there, not knowing what you have, and you make two good, solid rescues, it was thrilling for everyone." Despite hopes that other rescues would quickly follow, the missing CHP officers were nowhere to be seen. With agencies from two counties now involved in the complex and intensive search, CHP officers were sent to personally notify the families of the missing officers. According to Lt. Hagler, "The father of one officer, who is retired from the CHP, wanted to be on scene to observe. It was difficult, because our people are all hands-on, get-in-there-and-do-something type people. When there's nothing you can do but wait and watch, it's very frustrating." Hagler added that as the water began to recede, swiftwater rescuers finally spotted the tips of two wheels jutting up out of a sandbar which had been camouflaged by brush and debris. "Initially, nobody could tell what had happened," Sandy Joyner said, "because the patrol car was buried in mud. Even when we located the vehicle, we weren't sure what the status of the officers was, whether they had gotten out of the vehicle and were waiting to be rescued, or they were out of the car doing rescue work somewhere downstream. We had no idea. It wasn't until several hours later that it was finally determined that our officers were victims of this incident." The San Luis Obispo Sheriff's Department's dive team worked along with the CDF/County Fire swiftwater rescue team to manage the grim, but vital, task of extracting the bodies of the CHP officers. "Not only was the vehicle upside down and buried in mud," Mike Harkness explained, "it was thoroughly impacted with mud. You would take one shovel-full of sand out, and two shovels-full would get sucked back in." This resulted in a "really long and tragic day," Harkness said. Sgt. Pete Bayer of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Department added that while they were extracting the CHP vehicle, another half-ton pickup was discovered, covered in mud and debris, with no one inside. Bayer speculated that the driver somehow got out of the vehicle before it filled with water and sank, but was swept to his death downstream. "We brought in canine teams," Bayer said, "unfortunately, we have not yet recovered the missing man." Out of respect for the officers and their families, Harkness said that when it was time to remove the bodies from the patrol vehicle, the media was asked to leave. "This should always be a private moment," he said, "no matter who the victim is." CHP Officer Ken Carroll, who works out of the Santa Maria office where Stovall and Irvine served, indicated that Stovall, who was married with two children, "died of head trauma when the vehicle flipped and crushed the top of the roof." Irvine, who was engaged, "was knocked unconscious and died of fresh-water drowning," Carroll added sadly. Critical Incident Stress Management teams were quickly mobilized to work with emergency responders and CHP personnel, including the distressed dispatchers who had listened to the last words uttered by the officers before they disappeared. Unfortunately, no immediate crisis intervention was provided to the victims who were rescued, or to witnesses like Bill Klein, who has struggled to free his mind of the haunting image of the patrol vehicle's fatal plunge off the highway. "The headlights going straight down and the sound of the water is probably what sticks in my mind the most," Klein said. Downplaying his own lifesaving actions, he quietly added that, "Those officers died heroically. Seeing them saved my life, my daughter's life, and the lives of many others." Although it is too soon for "lessons learned," both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties are contemplating developing multi-agency swiftwater rescue and flood safety awareness programs, similar to the countywide program implemented by public safety agencies in Los Angeles County. History is too often overlooked in arid areas like California, where riverbeds look like dry gulch much of the time. Records show that this same area of Highway 166 was washed out during the 1982-83 El Niño storms. Officer Carroll summed it up this way: "When there's extreme weather, extreme caution needs to be used on roads near waterways. I guarantee that everyone in this office is going to be a lot more careful out there from now on."