Emergency crews rescue motorists caught in Southern California mudslides

LOS ANGELES — Rescuers threw ladders and tarps across mud up to 6 feet deep to help hundreds of trapped people in cars that got caught in a roiling river of mud along a major Southern California trucking route, a California Highway Patrol official said Friday in what he and other witnesses described as a chaotic scene.

Work crews, meanwhile, were able to reopen most lanes of Interstate 5 over the Grapevine, which also was closed Thursday due to landslides.

Two southbound lanes reopened late Friday afternoon, a couple hours after all northbound lanes were cleared for traffic.

Sgt. Mario Lopez, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol, was at the scene as people were being rescued and said it was sheer chaos.

The storms unleashed flash-flood and debris flows along the 58, on Interstate 5 and in two small mountainside communities where at least a dozen homes were reported damaged.

Emergency crews were working to dig out head-high mounds of mud from the 58 and Interstate 5, which was also shut down as cars were trapped in the mud Thursday.