Shown in these photos is some of the property damaged by Saturday’s mud slide and flash flood, which destroyed as many as 25 structures, including homes and outbuildings. Top two photos courtesy Carma Roper, Inyo County Sheriff’s Department/bottom photo by Ken Babione

By Mike Gervais
Register Staff

7-15-2008

A torrential summer downpour, coupled with barren earth left by last year’s Inyo Complex Fire, forced dozens of Independence residents from their homes over the weekend and prompted local authorities to declare a state of emergency as a massive mud slide made its way from the Sierra into Fort Independence.
Some lost everything on Saturday, as the mud slide carved its way down Oak Creek and across U.S. 395, taking homes, vehicles, trees and boulders with it.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued by the Inyo County Sheriff’s Department in the areas of Oak Creek and West Fort Independence and the Fort Independence Campground Saturday where several homes and other structures were destroyed by the floods.

By Mike Gervais
Register Staff

7-17-2008

Don “Rock” Wood lived up to his nickname Saturday evening when he body-surfed a 15-foot high wall of mud, water, boulders and trees one mile down Oak Creek Saturday night, escaping the treacherous mud slide with nothing more than cuts, scrapes, bumps and bruises.
Wood, a resident of Oak Creek, is the only resident involved in Saturday’s flooding and mud slide that suffered any significant injuries, but the extent of his inflictions are minor compared to the ordeal he went through that night.
“He is lucky to be alive,” said Inyo County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Carma Roper, “it’s nothing short of a miracle. But he has lost everything, as have many people.”

By Mike Gervais
Register Staff

7-17-2008 

A body was located Wednesday afternoon in a steep chute on a mountain located about one mile west of Bishop.
As of press time Wednesday, an Inyo County Search and Rescue team was en route to the location where the body was discovered for a recovery mission.
The body was found below an east ridge north of Bishop Pass, within the search area that had been established earlier this month for 44-year-old San Diego resident Ric DeVan, last seen hiking in the area Friday, July 4. It could not be confirmed at press time if the body belonged to the missing man.
More than 60 Search and Rescue team members from across the state participated in the week-long search for DeVan before the mission was called off last Friday.

By Darcy Ellis
Editor

7-12-2008

California Highway Patrol officers got more than they perhaps bargained for earlier this week when responding to a stolen-vehicle report in the Big Pine area.
Confronted by not one but two allegedly combative subjects – including the man who called to report his car stolen by someone he said assaulted him earlier in the evening – officers found themselves discharging their Conductive Energy Weapons (Tasers) twice and even physically taking one of the subjects to the ground.
When the fracas finally came to an end Monday evening, Big Pine residents Robert Gutierrez, 34, and Katheryn Brand, 48, were behind bars on carjacking and auto theft charges and 37-year-old Daniel Linkletter, the alleged victim, had been cited and released for public intoxication. That was after Linkletter was tasered when he allegedly tried to charge two separate officers and ignored their warnings to stop.