The small community of La Conchita is a lot like family. Less than a hundred homes. A couple of hundred residents along with assorted friends.

The sudden mudslide Monday afternoon that destroyed 15 homes is a memory that will be etched forever in the minds of those who witnessed it.

Here are some of their stories:

Ernie Garcia, 78, was on his way to the base of the hillside to visit a friend. He watched the flood of mud, rocks and trees rush down.

"One more minute and I would have been buried alive," he said.

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Twelve-year-old Cora Hart had spent the morning with her grandmother, Diane Hart, then headed home a few blocks away. The landslides hit and her grandmother’s home was smothered in the rubble.

The little girl waited anxiously for two hours, then at 3:30 p.m, got word that her grandmother had been rescued.

"I don’t know what I would do if she had died," Cora Hart said. "I have known her all my life and she was always there for me. She is the closest person to me besides my mom."

Roger Hart, Cora’s grandfather and Diane Hart’s ex-husband, has lived in La Conchita since 1981. He said the slide changed his thinking about his home.

"I don’t think I will ever spend another night in this town again," he said. "I can’t take a chance of having my granddaughter killed. It’s OK if I go, but I can’t take the chance of her being buried alive."

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When the slide finally halted, Taylor Wood, 17, ran toward the pile of mud and debris. He saw an injured man in the rubble and began screaming. He stayed with the man, trying to keep him calm until help arrived.

"It was like a movie," Wood said. "I hate to use the word, but it was kind of like Hell."

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Gail Holmstrom lived in La Conchita between 1973 and 1995, when her home was damaged in a slide that destroyed nine homes in March of that year. Holmstrom moved back to La Conchita in July. Now, she doesn’t want to stay.

"I don’t trust that hill," she said. "What do we do now? This is like a nightmare. It’s deja vu all over again."

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Rick Green Sky, his wife Corine and their daughter Starr, 7, loaded a few belongings and headed out of La Conchita.

"We a heard a noise and we looked, the houses started going down. You could hear it, you could feel, and the dust started coming up. Then it was just ‘Run!’ " Rick Green Sky recalled as he lugged a backpack and a suitcase toward the highway.

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Skip Cullins was playing in the mud with his children.

"We were just having a good day, then we heard a big kapow. One of our neighbors barely made it," he said a few hours later as he and his family huddled by their car, waiting for news of other friends.

"It’s a lot of trauma right now. It’s like ‘95 all over again."

— Staff writers Erinn Hutkin, Rhiannon Potkey and Michelle Klampe contributed to this report.?