Woman buried alive in La Conchita landslide hopes to help Montecito
Thirteen years ago, 10 people were killed and 27 homes were destroyed when the La Conchita hillside buried the small beachside community.
The last survivor of the 2005 landslide feels like she’s right there with the victims of the Montecito debris flow. She hopes by sharing her story, she can help someone in Montecito as they grieve and rebuild.
By all accounts, it’s a miracle that Diane Hart is still alive.
She equates the force of the mud that carried her tiny frame across the street from her Santa Barbara Avenue home and encased her in the rubble of her own fireplace, to that of a bulldozer.
Her heart aches for Montecito and she says recovery is exhausting physically and emotionally.
“It’s kind of how I feel when I’m approaching La Conchita. Does the car turn this way or does it keep on going?” said Hart, explaining what goes through her mind whenever she’s traveling home from visiting her son in Ventura.
At one point, Hart’s kitchen tile was still scattered around in the dirt. All that’s left of what was once ‘home’ is a hill of dirt, surrounded by a chain-link fence with a makeshift cross on top. It’s a sight that makes her stomach flip.
If Hart does decide to pull over, she always goes back to where her house once stood and says a prayer.
“Every time I come here that’s the first thing I want to do is say a prayer for the people that lost their lives and it’s 13 years later and I’m still feeling that hurt for them,” said Hart.
Hart says she turned her panic into prayer on Jan. 10, 2005.
“I got up and walked to the edge of my desk and saw the two twins, 20-years-old, running down the street frantically looking over their shoulders and I knew it was the mountain and the next second my house started crushing in,” said Hart.
It took eight seconds for the 56-year old nurse to be buried alive. Trapped under 30 feet of rocks mud and debris for 4.5 hours with collapsed lungs and 20 broken bones.
“I braced up my back and I said you’re not going to kill me as it came down on me like an elephant falling from the sky,” said Hart.
With just two by two feet of airspace, Hart was determined to survive.
“I went into full-on panic. I left my body for a while and had a spiritual experience and then came back peaceful and realized my importance was to save my air and to stay calm,” said Hart.
The last survivor of the 2005 La Conchita Mudslide says she re-experienced everything on January 9th.
“The mourning I think goes on forever, it maybe gets better and isn’t quite as hurtful as the years go by but I don’t know if you ever get over losing a loved one, or a family member or a neighbor,” said Hart.
The author and motivational speaker says it’s possible many in Montecito are suffering from PTSD and it’s important to recognize the five stages of grief.
“The pieces of the puzzle will fall together and you heal a little bit at a time and it comes in those bits and pieces a little bit here, a little bit there,” said Hart.
Hart hopes her story of survival can serve as a source of inspiration for Montecito and says eventually you find your ‘home’ again.
“It’s a devastating thing to go through and it takes resilience and grit and putting one foot in front of the other and one day at a time getting through it,” said Hart.
It took 10 years for Hart to recover and she still has some health impacts from the incident to this day.
