Ellen DeGeneres held back tears as she told her talk show audience how she and her wife were forced to flee their home ahead of the California mudslides that have claimed 17 lives.
Ellen revealed she and her wife Porti de Rossi were among the thousands ordered to leave their homes in the wealthy enclave of Montecito on Sunday.
Aerial images have captured the devastation caused to the neighborhood where the couple live alongside neighbors including Oprah Winfrey and Gwyneth Paltrow.
In Thursday’s episode of The Ellen DeGeneres show, she said: ‘Usually, we’re grateful for rain, especially in California, but not after the largest fire in the history of California.
Ellen DeGeneres held back tears as she told her talk show audience how she and her wife were forced to flee their home ahead of the California mudslides
‘So again, we evacuated because they feared mudslides. After everything we’ve been through, I think a lot of people thought they were just being overly cautious but exactly what they feared happened.
‘The rain triggered massive mudslides. Massive.’
She showed her audience a picture of the street in front of her home, showed fallen trees covered with mud.
On Twitter, she wrote alongside the image: ‘I don’t know anything about our house yet.
‘I’m heartbroken for the community of Montecito. I’m devastated for the families who lost loved ones. I’m grateful to all the rescue workers. Please send love to Montecito.’
Ellen shared a picture of the street in front of her home, showed fallen trees covered with mud
An aerial shot of Ellen DeGeneres’ Montecito home shows it appeared to have sustained roof damage
And as she continued to share her love for the town she considers home, she became emotional.
‘If you’ve never been there, Montecito is a small town,’ she said.
‘It’s less than 10,000 people, it has two public schools, family-owned businesses. It’s a tight-knit community so everyone kind of knows everyone.
‘I work in LA, but I consider Montecito my home.’
She added: ‘It’s not just a wealthy community, it’s filled with a lot of different types of people from all backgrounds.
‘And there are families missing, there are people who are missing family members.
The death toll from Tuesday’s pre-dawn flash flood rose to 17 on Wednesday. An aerial shot shows the devastation to Montecito
Oprah was allowed to remain at her mansion (pictured above) in Montecito because it is located on a knoll, she said
‘They’re finding people and bodies and I mean, you hear the word mudslide and you have no idea the impact that it has, but after the largest fire in California history, it’s catastrophic. It is beyond recognisable.’
She then FaceTimed with Oprah, who authorities allowed to remain at her property – which sustained minimal damage – as it’s situated on a knoll.
‘All of my neighbours’ homes are gutted,’ Oprah said.
‘I’m standing right now still in a lot of mud but not as much as yesterday.
‘I walked out back, you know, where we share a fence line and the neighbours out back they’re houses are gone. It’s as devastating as can be.’
Oprah shared a video to her Instagram to let her followers know she was safe and showed the damage to her property
Mudslides in Southern California on Tuesday destroyed over a 100 houses, swept cars to the beach and left at least 17 people dead
She added: ‘You know what’s devastating is that we’ve lost so many lives and it’s a tiny little community and nobody would’ve expected, certainly, I did not, that after we survived the fires and the rain came.
‘Who would’ve expected that we would have this devastation again with the mudslides, and so soon?’
But she added: ‘We’re gonna come together and we’re gonna do what great Americans do all the time, we’re going to help each other.’
On Thursday, hundreds of searchers continued the grueling work of hunting for survivors and digging up bodies in the sea of mud and wreckage left by flash flooding.
Damage from mud, boulders, and debris destroyed homes that lined Montecito Creek near East Valley Road in Montecito
Rescue crews searched grimy debris and ruins for more than a dozen people missing after the mudslides
The death toll from Tuesday’s pre-dawn flash flood rose to 17 on Wednesday as more bodies were found. Another 17 were still reported missing.
Muck-spattered searchers from around the state slogged through knee-deep ooze, poking long poles into the mud to probe for victims in the wealthy enclave of 9,000 people northwest of Los Angeles.
Search dogs clambered on shattered heaps of wood that used to be homes.
However, the flood left the town strewn with mud, boulders, wrecked cars, trashed buildings and tree limbs in a scene that Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown has compared to a World War I battlefield.
By Wednesday, some 500 searchers had covered about 75 percent of the inundated area, authorities said.
An aerial shot over downtown Montecito shows damage after mudslides hit on Tuesday
‘We’ve gotten multiple reports of rescuers falling through manholes that were covered with mud, swimming pools that were covered up with mud,’ said Anthony Buzzerio, a Los Angeles County fire battalion chief.
‘The mud is acting like a candy shell on ice cream. It’s crusty on top but soft underneath, so we’re having to be very careful.’
A dozen people were hospitalized at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital and four were in critical condition, Dr. Brett Wilson said.
People in Montecito had counted themselves lucky last month after the biggest wildfire in California history spared the town.
But it was the fire that led to the mudslide, by burning away vegetation.
Only an estimated 10 to 15 percent of residents fled when ordered and much of the damage occurred where evacuations were voluntary.