At Least 15 People Are Dead After Mudslides Hit A Southern California Beach Community

More than a dozen people have died after mudslides triggered by strong storms hurled rocks and debris down fire-ravaged hillsides and into Southern California neighborhoods on Tuesday.

The Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office raised the number of confirmed deaths from 13 to 15 on Wednesday morning.

County Sheriff Bill Brown told CBS This Morning that search and rescue operations were still underway.

"Currently we are working to try to identify people who may still be trapped and isolated in areas that we have not yet been able to gain complete access to," he said. "We worked through the night, and I'm happy to say that we did get through to some people who were trapped in homes but otherwise safe."

Officials said on Tuesday that dozens of people were rescued from the torrent of water and mud and crews were continuing to search the hilly, coastal community of Montecito and surrounding areas for at least two dozen others still reported missing. A "significant number" of people were also injured in the slides, which began early Tuesday morning, Brown said.

"It looked like a World War I battlefield," Brown said on Tuesday. "It was a carpet of mud and debris. There were boulders, downed power lines, wrecked cars... The mud was knee-deep in the roadways and deeper in canyons. It made access to people very difficult."

Although 30,000 people were ordered or urged to evacuate, a majority chose to stay in their homes after becoming frustrated with evacuation procedures during a massive wildfire that tore through the area last month.

About 300 people were still trapped in their homes in Romero Canyon, a rural neighborhood tucked in the hills southwest of Santa Barbara, and are "completely cut off," Brown said.

"We're just focused on making sure people are still alive right now," he said.

Several dozen homes were torn from their foundations or severely damaged, and dozens of people were unaccounted for in neighborhoods near the hills recently scarred by the Thomas Fire. The fire ignited in December and became the state's largest on record, tearing through more than 281,000 acres. It is still not fully contained.