Mud covered photo album returned to Montecito family

Their home was broken apart, but one of their possessions surfaced from the Montecito mudslide debris.

While KEYT NewsChannel 3 was broadcasting on the Olive Mill overpass in the first two days of the disaster, a photo album was spotted.

Pictures were posted on Facebook by KEYT reporter John Palminteri and the owners were found through the power of social media.

{“author_name”:”John Palminteri KEYT KCOY KKFX”,”author_url”:”https://www.facebook.com/KEYTNC3JohnP/”,”provider_url”:”https://www.facebook.com”,”provider_name”:”Facebook”,”success”:true,”height”:null,”html”:”&#lt;div id=”fb-root”&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;n&#lt;script&#gt;(function(d, s, id) {n var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];n if (d.getElementById(id)) return;n js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;n js.src = ‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.11’;n fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);n}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));&#lt;/script&#gt;&#lt;div class=”fb-post” data-href=”https://www.facebook.com/KEYTNC3JohnP/posts/588461571496594″ data-width=”552″&#gt;&#lt;blockquote cite=”https://www.facebook.com/KEYTNC3JohnP/posts/588461571496594″ class=”fb-xfbml-parse-ignore”&#gt;&#lt;p&#gt;‪HELP ME locate these people. I have a photo album covered in Montecito mud.&#lt;/p&#gt;Posted by &#lt;a href=”https://www.facebook.com/KEYTNC3JohnP/”&#gt;John Palminteri KEYT KCOY KKFX&#lt;/a&#gt; on &#lt;a href=”https://www.facebook.com/KEYTNC3JohnP/posts/588461571496594″&#gt;Thursday, January 11, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;&#lt;/div&#gt;”,”type”:”rich”,”version”:”1.0″,”url”:”https://www.facebook.com/KEYTNC3JohnP/posts/588461571496594″,”width”:552}

The post was shared hundreds of times on John Palminteri’s Facebook page over the few days after the rainstorm.

John returned the album full of family photos even though it was caked in mud.

Ironically David Grokenberger was the first person the station interviewed as the tragedy was unfolding and he was just rescued last Tuesday morning off of Hot Springs Road.

The mudslides began early last Tuesday morning after a heavy rainfall within in a short period of time.