Storm turns creek into raging river, sweeping Don Pedro house away with couple inside

March 27--LAKE DON PEDRO -- Lake Don Pedro

The lazy, babbling brook meandering through Dominic and Kim Taylor's rural property swiftly became a raging torrent last week, floating their manufactured home off its cinder-block foundation -- with them inside -- and depositing it about 20 feet away.

Alarmed, the Taylors swam to safety and no one was hurt, but they fear the house is ruined. They see no easy way of lifting the house and placing it back where it's supposed to be, and besides, it's filled with mud, a water mark stretching 5 feet high on one side of the now-lopsided home, 6 on the other.

And no, they don't have flood insurance. They do not know any neighbors who do.

"We don't live in a flood plain. They don't offer you flood insurance if you don't," Kim Taylor said.

The Taylors moved to Violeta Way, near Coulterville, from dry Stevinson early in their marriage 24 years ago, drawn by rolling hills, green trees and, of course, the small creek gurgling nearby. It's spanned by a small wooden bridge, some 20 vertical feet down a slope from the homesite. The brook is a tributary to Piney Creek, which eventually flows into Lake McClure.

The Taylors worked and saved and eventually moved the double-wide manufactured home to the property in an effort stretching several years. Even in violent storms, like the one in early 1997 that inundated part of south Modesto, the brook never topped the tiny bridge, they said.

But Thursday's storm dumped several inches seemingly at once up here, unleashing flash floods that washed out roads and water pipes in several foothill communities. Two people went missing in separate parts of Mariposa County, one not far from the Taylors' place, and searchers continue looking.

Thursday morning, Dominic was home alone, preparing for a swing shift at Modesto's Gallo Winery. Kim and their 10-year-old son, Landon, were six miles away at the elementary school, where she's a librarian and he is a student. Daughter Logan, 20, was off at another school.

As the storm worsened, Dominic worried about securing aluminum cans outside, collected for recycling. He was alarmed to see that the creek had grown to a large river and was swiftly approaching the home.

"It was like somebody unplugged a cork," he said. "I'm like, 'No way. We're going to lose the place.'"

He called Kim, who had been moving cars parked at the school (which remains closed this week because its water supply is unsafe) to higher ground.

She rushed home with Landon, who stayed in their pickup and captured a few dramatic minutes of video on an iPad. Viewers can see a basketball float by, then Kim's head bobbing as she dog-paddles toward the family's Volkswagen as it lifts from the ground and begins floating downstream.

"Oh freak! (The car) is coming to us!" Landon narrates, and his mother pushes the floating sedan, then a floating quad-runner, toward the bank.

"That has to be Mom. That's my mom. She's Superman! This is just like a movie, a bad, bad movie," a breathless Landon says.

Dominic, barefoot and in boxer-briefs, evacuated their Labrador retriever, Buddy, and parrot, Chappy. "I didn't have time for pants," he said.

Almost as sudden as the water came up, it receded. The event lasted 30, maybe 45 minutes, the Taylors said.

In the few days since, the family has been trying to put some order to what now resembles a disaster area, with tons of debris like the aftermath of a hurricane or mudslide. But they can't accomplish much until a home insurance adjuster arrives on Wednesday.

"Look, there's somebody's washing machine," Kim said to her husband on Monday, motioning toward the debris field, littered with dead trees, tires, a stray dock, all covered with thick mud.

Much accumulated near a relatively small culvert in an embankment under a nearby road. The small creek passes through the culvert; it must have been overwhelmed by the flash flood, forcing the heavy flow to back up and rise to the Taylor's house.

On a now-crooked kitchen wall are cooking-related picture frames, hung long ago, with motivational captions including "Don't flip out" and "Roll with it."

There isn't much anyone can do now, Kim said, so she smiles. A lot.

"It could be worse," Dominic said. "Other people have missing loved ones."

Bill Mitchell, a volunteer with the Mariposa County Sheriff's Department, came by to check on the family. "They are the only ones I know who were displaced in Lake Don Pedro," he said. Much of his agency continues searching for the bodies of those missing, assisted by crews from surrounding counties.

The local Red Cross gave the Taylors drinking water and a lodging voucher, but they're staying in a friend's travel trailer for now. "School moms" have brought them meals, Kim said.

"You predict a fire" in the often-dry foothills, Kim said. "Not this."

Garth Stapley: 209-578-2390

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