The 1978 Pinecrest Mudslide – Part 2

The story of the Genofile family’s brush with death, continued. It was the middle of the night in February 1978. A burst of intense rain had broken loose a massive portion of the fire-scarred San Gabriel Mountains above the Pinecrest development. Mud, rocks and water had easily crested the debris basin dam at the top of Pine Cone Road, and a black churning wall was now hurtling down the steep road, picking up cars as it went.

At the bottom of the road sat the Genofile house. Bob, Jackie and their two teenaged kids, Kim and Scott, had heard the change in the sound of the flood control channel next to the house. Jackie and Kim looked out the front window. An electrical flash as a power line parted revealed the black wall moving toward them. They turned and ran down a hallway toward the back of the house.

When the wall hit the house, there were explosive sounds as the safety-glass windows of the many cars in the mudflow popped out. Doors and windows of the house burst open, and mud and boulders chased Jackie and Kim into the back bedroom where Bob and Scott were. Scott tried to close the bedroom door, but it burst inward. The room began to quickly fill, and the desperate family could hear rocks going over the roof of the house. They were all pushed against the back wall, and Bob yelled, “Get on the bed!” The bed was floating, carrying the family up, rising toward the ceiling. When they pressed against the ceiling, they all climbed or fell off, and were crushed against the back wall, boulders pinning their legs in place. They were sure they were going to die.

This all happened in just moments. The mud and rocks stopped flowing into the room but the family was trapped with quickly hardening mud up to their chins. They lost track of time. The horn of a car that was pressed against their house blared incessantly and all was dark. Hours went by while outside rescue teams converged on Pinecrest. Rescuers intentionally passed by the buried house. They assumed all inside must be dead, so they continued up the hill to save live victims.

As light dawned, one of the neighbors approached the buried house and heard young Scott Genofile whistling for help. Rescuers were alerted and came to dig the family out of the mud and rocks. Incredibly, the entire family was okay. Cold, wet, sore, their clothes torn, but miraculously uninjured. Even more amazing, the house had held its ground and had not been swept away. Mud and rocks were 12 feet high, level with the roofline, the house was filled to the ceilings, and wrecked cars were jammed against the house and strewn through the yard.

It didn’t take long for the Genofile family to decide that they would stay in their house. After the many wrecked cars were cleared and the mud removed from their house, it was found there was no structural damage. Bob Genofile had built a fortress of a home. But most of their valuable possessions had been flushed out of the house during the flow.

There were several miraculous retrievals of personal items for the family over the years. Bob Genofile was planning on giving his daughter a generous amount of cash for her birthday. It was stashed in his wallet, which had washed away. A couple of days later son Scott was picking through the wreckage. He saw something that looked like the head of a snake sticking up out of the mud and pulled on it. It was a belt. Out of the mud came Dad’s pants, with the wallet containing the money in the pocket. Their cat was discovered hiding in a cupboard a couple of days later. A year and a half later, Scott found his mother’s wedding ring in a debris basin downstream, and her purse was dug out of the garden by a landscaper.

The damage to Pinecrest was substantial and next week we’ll look at how the rest of Pinecrest fared.