Basically what happened is fires happened too close to a big rain. So, the fires were in the hills above Montecito which burned off everything that prevents mud and rock slides from happening. Then just after the fire within a few weeks I believe a huge rainstorm hit and dropped an amazing amount of rain on denuded ground that had just been burnt off. Then this land which has many boulders and rocks above the fancy rich homes just started rolling down the hills into the homes and through them because they rolled down the hills with no trees or plants to stop them and the mud came like a river in some places and went all the way to the ocean and buried the local Freeway 101 there in the underpasses in 10 to 15 feet of mud and debris which close the freeway there for a long time too. Then the water and mud kept going until it drained into the sea leaving a complete disaster in it's wake. This caused people to have to find another way to Los Angeles because all the routes south from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles were buried in mud.
So, because of the terrain there people likely had to drive north to Santa maria (or another location I might not know of) to route 166 to get to even Ventura and points south so this disrupted anyone who had jobs either in Santa Barbara or further south in Oxnard or ventura who couldn't get there for weeks until Highway 101 reopened.
Basically it became a "You cannot get there from here" (unless you flew on a plane or took a boat) during these weeks of repair to the 101 freeway there which was possible because of the boats in Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Airport which is a jet port too. But, if you were not rich enough to do this you couldn't even get to your job in Carpenteria or Oxnard or Ventura from Santa Barbara otherwise.
Also, we let people who were friends stay in our Santa Barbara house who were in danger of the floods during that time too which helped them survive all this.
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