5 found dead in California mountains cut off for days by massive snowstorm

LOS ANGELES — Michelle Hake’s sister had been snowed in for days, alone in her Big Bear home. Her family said it wasn’t clear how urgent her medical needs had grown during last month’s record-setting snowstorms.

She “needed medical attention in the midst of the storm, and we could not get that to her,” Hake said. Her family called for an emergency wellness check Monday.

“We were too late,” she said.

Deputies with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department found Hake’s sister dead just after 9 a.m., agency spokesperson Mara Rodriguez said. A cause of death has not been determined, but Rodriguez said there were no signs of trauma or suspicious circumstances.

Hake, who requested that her adult sister not be identified, declined to expound on her sister’s medical history or what may have led to her death. But she said she has no doubt that her sister would have gotten the care she needed had the storms not trapped her inside.

“We were trying to get someone to go check on her,” Hake said. “There was literally no access to get to her; she lives alone. And for so many that are (stuck) in their homes, that is their story.”

Rodriguez said at least two other people in San Bernardino’s mountain communities have been found dead through official welfare checks since Feb. 23, when the historic snowstorms started. One was found dead in Big Bear and the other in Valley of Enchantment, a neighborhood in Crestline.

She didn’t have additional details on the other deaths, and all are awaiting autopsies. However, as of Wednesday, she said none was considered storm-related. She did not immediately respond to questions about how that designation is determined.

Residents of the mountain communities say there are others who have died in recent days.

In Crestline’s Skyland community, Rhea-Frances Tetley said her 93-year-old neighbor, Elinor “Dolly” Avenatti, was found dead Tuesday.

Avenatti may have been elderly, Tetley said, but she was lively and a fixture in their community.

“She was a joy for the neighborhood,” Tetley said. “She was feisty and independent ... and generous to a fault.”

Avenatti was active in senior citizens groups, baked for neighbors, walked daily before the storm and collected bottles and cans to make donations to animal rights groups, Tetley said.

She worried that a week without power, stuck in her cold house alone behind mounds of snow, may have been what killed Avenatti. Tetley said neighbors had been delivering food and checking in on Tetley for about a week, but on Monday — the day their street regained electricity — the nonagenarian didn’t answer her door. On Tuesday, neighbors went in and found her dead.

“She didn’t have heat,” Tetley said. “I think that she froze to death in the house.”

Tetley said that soon after Avenatti’s body was found, their street was finally plowed, because emergency officials needed to respond to the death.

According to KCAL News, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has responded to 11 deaths since the storms, but only one has been classified as storm-related. The Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to questions from the Los Angeles Times about Avenatti’s or any additional deaths.

Hake said she’s worried there could be even more casualties as people continue to dig out from the snow.

“The level of loss and just the magnitude of the storm ... I just cannot convey enough just how devastating” it has been, Hake said.

For nearly two weeks, many living in mountain communities from Crestline to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear have been trapped under massive amounts of snow — more than 100 inches in some places — while officials have struggled to clear roadways and provide relief after back-to-back storms pummeled the region with blizzard conditions and relentless snowfall. Residents were without power for days, roofs and decks collapsed, gas leaks spurred storm-related fires, and entire neighborhoods struggled to get supplies of food and gas.

As of Wednesday morning, about 95% of San Bernardino County roads have been cleared, officials said, but they noted that many of those roadways are still only wide enough to accommodate single-lane traffic. Almost 30 miles of roads still have not been plowed.

Hake and her family were without power in their Crestline home for at least five days, she said, eventually relocating to a friend’s house to wait for the power to be restored and roads to clear. She said that for days, there was no way to get to Big Bear to check on her sister, or even to her parents’ home in Lake Arrowhead.

“It feels like we are living in an alternate reality up here,” Hake said. As president of the Crestline Chamber of Commerce, she is helping coordinate supply drop-offs and facilitate wellness checks across the mountain community — even before her sister was found dead.

She said during one of those checks, a neighbor found an elderly man inside his home, where “for the last five days he had been rationing a frozen tamale.”

“I don’t think people know how dire it is right now,” Hake said. “We are literally trying to find people like my sister, people who are in their homes, and their life is hanging in the balance.”

Hake’s store, Hearth & Sage General Store in Crestline, remains closed, and she doesn’t expect to reopen it with the roads still difficult to pass and most parking lots full of excess snow from plowing.

“Right now, we’re still focused on getting to people in need and getting everybody accounted (for),” Hake said.

Megan Vasquez, who started a food distribution center for Valley of Enchantment, said she’s heard of at least two people who died during the storms.

“I do feel like there is going to be a large body count when it’s all said and done,” Vasquez said. “There are many elderly people who are kind of reclusive in their homes with nothing, and there will be more people who have passed.”

Kristy Baltezore found one of her Crestline neighbors dead after she went to check on her. The woman, whom Baltezore didn’t want to identify, hadn’t been ill and wasn’t disabled.

“I know there are people dead,” Baltezore said. “I see what every single person on that map needs. I know who they are. I know how vulnerable they are. This is not good. We still have half our community we haven’t made contact with.”

Rodriguez, the San Bernardino sheriff’s spokesperson, said the number of official welfare checks in recent days has decreased significantly. She said authorities are making house calls the same day a welfare check is requested.

If anyone needs help checking on a neighbor or loved one, officials said to call 911 or the county’s Storm Response Call Center at (909) 387-3911.

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(Los Angeles Times staff writer Summer Lin contributed to this report.)