Life Has Been Hell!

Last month, after a mandatory evacuation because of the Thomas Fire that destroyed 1,063 homes, which saw me fleeing to animal activist Gretchen Lieff‘s ranch near Santa Maria, and then flying to England to spend Yuletide at a 400-year-old cottage in Cornwall with Santa Barbara Polo Club sponsor Cat Pollon, I thought the disruption was well and truly over.

But last week, I returned to our rarefied enclave drenched with torrential rain, mudslides and flash floods that killed more than 20 people, including local realtor Rebecca Riskin, 61, who died with her two dogs when a mudslide swept down on her.

In the early morning after I arrived, a flash flood destroyed a creekside home just 300 yards down the road from me, with two fatalities, while my home and I are still, fortunately, standing.

Oprah Winfrey‘s East Valley Road estate escaped the brunt of the disaster, being situated on a knoll, but neighbor and Oscar winner Jeff Bridges‘s $6.8-million home, which he bought three years ago, was severely damaged.

“But we are safe,” tweeted The Big Lebowski star. “We are thankful for that and for the first responders who are working tirelessly to save people.”

Also unlucky was Oscar winner Gwyneth Paltrow‘s recently acquired $4.9-million home, whose Monet-like gardens were wiped out in a mudslide, as was my friend author Robert Eringer‘s home, just a tiara’s toss from Casa Dorinda, which escaped relatively unscathed.

The deluge also devastated Beanie Baby billionaire Ty Warner‘s 500-acre San Ysidro Ranch, with many of its 41 individually styled cottages buried under thick mud or destroyed completely.

Also lucky was TV talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres, 59, who fled her $40-million estate with actress Portia de Rossi, two days before the downpour, before learning later that Elliot, her 92-year-old father had died of natural causes.

But former tennis ace Jimmy Connors was trapped in his 8,000-sq.-ft. home and had to be evacuated by helicopter, as did many other local residents.

Supermodel Gigi Hadid, a former student at Montecito Union School, asked for prayers on Twitter.

“Please keep the families of Santa Barbara in your thoughts and prayers,” she asked, complete with an emoticon of a broken heart.

With more than 75 homes destroyed and 400 others damaged, the 1,250 responders, armed with search dogs, have done sterling work, sifting through the mudslides for signs of life, and manning the barricades at important junctions throughout our tony community.

When I tried to leave, I was informed by police and sheriff personnel at the junction of Hot Springs Road and East Valley that I couldn’t until a safe escape route had been worked out with an escort, given telephone poles were falling on Hot Springs Road and the bridge over the creek near Parre Grande Lane was dangerously unsound, given the flash flooding.

“I wouldn’t even want to walk over it,” one officer explained, “let alone drive in a car.”

Fortunately, power and water have been restored.

But, like the legendary phoenix, Montecito will rise again and become the idyllic community I have loved since moving here from L.A. 11 years ago.

Such is the price of living in paradise. It is to be hoped Mother Nature, having exercised her wrath twice in consecutive months, will now give use a well-earned break.