The wind and rain had found a rival in Cheryl Chiapuzio. The 47-year-old Camarillo homemaker was herself a force of nature on Monday afternoon. She was full of fire and flint as she and her husband, Don, pulled up to the Red Cross shelter at the Ventura County Fairgrounds.

Cheryl was having none of me as I approached her for an interview. She shrugged me off, as if to say the last thing she needed was a reporter. In most circumstances, she'd be right.

The Chiapuzios came to the aid station to find out how they could reach his elderly parents in La Conchita.

Don and Gloria Chiapuzio, in their 70s, had survived the catastrophic mudslide; they knew that much. But they were in a state of shock, and the elder Chiapuzio and his wife were in no health to cope with disaster. He had just last week been hospitalized for a heart condition.

Their peach stucco two-story is yards away from where the mound of mud churned down Santa Barbara Street, swallowing their neighbors' homes and lives.

Still, they had told their children they would stay put.

Wrong answer. Cheryl and Don wanted them out of there, but no matter how much Cheryl cajoled and cried, police officers prevented them from going north on Highway 101.

I told them my press pass might get us through the checkpoints.

Cheryl never missed a beat. "Let's go," she said. We introduced ourselves and hopped into Don's four-wheel-drive pickup.

We easily cleared a Highway Patrol checkpoint with my press ID, but it got tougher soon after, and so did this couple.

With emergency lights flickering, we merged onto the eerily empty Highway 101. Within a mile, a heavy-duty emergency truck -- a vehicle built like a red tank -- had gone over the side. RVs on the Rincon were up to their hubcaps in mud.

At the next checkpoint, about a half mile south of La Conchita, the officer told us we'd go no farther by vehicle.

We made the rest of the way on foot. As we got closer to La Conchita and to the knot of emergency vehicles and TV satellite trucks, Don and Cheryl's pace quickened. "We don't have that much daylight left," Don said as we hoofed down the middle of the freeway.

But there was enough to see what the Chiapuzios could never have imagined.

"Oh, my God," they said in unison.

Before us stood 300 yards of mud, as high as a three-story building. Yellow-slickered emergency workers toiled atop it, dwarfed by its size. They looked small, but the task at hand was daunting.

No one had to say it. The rescue teams would not be on that mud unless they believed there were people trapped below.

They quickly saw Don's parents' home was still intact, although the distance between the second story balcony and the slide was entirely too close for comfort.

The emergency personnel staffing the rope line refused to let us pass, saying only they would contact the couple.

Don couldn't wait. A local sneaked him in a side way. When officers caught him, they threatened Don with arrest.

Cheryl and I watched as the exhausted, mud-splattered residents of La Conchita evacuated in compact cars, pickups and even on foot with their dogs on leashes.

Then Cheryl spotted her in-laws' pickup come down the hill. She stopped emergency vehicles to hug her father-in-law through the driver's side window.

We climbed in the open bed of his truck and rode out of La Conchita that way.

The slide sounded like a tornado, Don Sr. later told me. Wife, Gloria, watched as power poles snapped and fell as if to their knees.

They had watched as the mud overtook and claimed a longtime neighbor. They had watched as locals came with shovels to dig out a family.

As I left with Cheryl and Don, I could see he was relieved and, yet, sad. His tone reminded me of one I'd heard when adult children have to take the keys away from their elderly parents.

"My dad loves it there. He was afraid if he left, we would never let him go back.

"But I have got to get them out of this town," Don said.

-- Colleen Cason's e-mail address is ccason@VenturaCountyStar.com. Her telephone number is 655-5830.