A mudslide crashed into three homes in Holladay, Utah, last week following a water line break, just two weeks after flash floods in Texas claimed the lives of 135 people.
While there were no casualties, one survivor of the July 15 incident described it as an ‘explosion of water’ bringing thick sludge and debris in its wake.
The catastrophe is all too familiar to Kim Cantin, for whom such recent disasters have triggered flashbacks to a devastating California mudslide seven years ago that claimed the lives of 23 – including her husband, David, 49, and son, Jack, 17.
‘I could barely watch footage of the flood in Texas,’ Cantin told the Daily Mail. ‘The numbers of loss of life are staggering.’
She said photographs in the media of the 27 children and adults who were swept to their deaths while enjoying part of their summer at Camp Mystic in Kerr County brought back harrowing memories of the tragedy that struck her own family.
The Cantins had gone to bed after dinner on January 8, 2018, having watched TV updates on the extreme weather.
They had already evacuated three times before Christmas when the Thomas Fire, one of the most destructive in California history, tore through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
Pictured: Lauren Cantin, then 14, who was swept away by a giant mudslide, photographed just minutes after she was rescued by emergency crews on January 9, 2018
Pictured: Kim Cantin with her husband, David, son, Jack and daughter, Lauren. The joyous photograph was taken just weeks before the tragedy took the lives of David and Jack
Thomas set the stage for the coming disaster by scorching the nearby hills and leaving debris, piles of dirt and car-sized boulders.
Though their home was not in the mandatory evacuation zone ahead of the January 8 storm, the family had taken precautions: installing a sump pump in their French drain and placing sandbags all around the property.
The contingency plan was to get their car – which was parked on higher ground in a neighbor’s driveway – and check into the hotel they had booked just in case.
At about 3:30am, after hours of torrential downpour, things took a turn for the worse when a section of the mountain horrifyingly broke away, sending mud and giant rocks roaring down the slope toward them.
Cantin and David rushed out of their bedroom and into the living room. Jack and his sister, Lauren, then 14, were in their rooms trying to grab some clothes.
The noise was deafening. ‘It was like the sound of an Amtrak train combined with Niagara Falls,’ she recalled.
David opened the front door – and the mud was already upon them. Two neighboring houses wore torn apart, and he screamed: ‘Back door now!’ They were the last words he ever spoke to his wife.
With no time to get to the car, Cantin followed David’s instructions, mistakenly thinking that the backyard might be safer.
But it was too late. She couldn’t force the door because of the wall of mud against it outside. She lost consciousness as the mud consumed the house and thinks, looking back, that she had probably been hit on the head by debris.
Pictured: David and Jack before the disaster that led to their deaths aged 49 and 17
Pictured: David as a proud father with Jack who was a committed member of the Boy Scouts
Three hours later, rescuers spotted her lying atop a mud pile. Barely conscious and badly injured, she was taken to a hospital for surgery on a fractured hip and leg lacerations that went through to the bone.
Doctors also had to debride a deep wound on her arm to avoid infection. ‘It was like a big hanging triangle of flesh, with some debris in it,’ Cantin, who now lives in Santa Barbara, said.
In shock, suffering from hypothermia and disorientated from sedatives, she still didn’t know whether her husband and children had survived.
Then, at 10:30am, a rescue coordinator entered the hospital room to ask if she had a daughter named Lauren. She had been pulled from the mud in a painstaking two-hour rescue because a nearby gas leak prevented the use of power tools.
‘I felt utter relief and gratefulness,’ Cantin said.
Despite being buried 20 feet in the mud, Lauren had managed to breathe through a tiny pocket of air next to her nose and mouth. Otherwise, the rescuers said, she would have certainly died.
When Cantin finally spoke via FaceTime that afternoon to Lauren, who had been taken to a different hospital in Santa Barbara, she learned that her daughter had kept calm by singing.
She had been due to play Fantine in Les Misérables for a local theater group and chose songs such as I Dreamed a Dream to remain hopeful.
But joy turned to grief the next day. A sheriff’s office representative arrived at the hospital bed with a priest. They told Cantin and her parents, who had come to visit, that David’s body had been recovered near the shoreline a half mile from their home.
She struggled for breath. It was too overwhelming to take in. Then Lauren was driven by ambulance to be with her mother, where Cantin broke the news that her father was dead. It was a heart-wrenching moment, made all the more so because Jack was still missing.
Pictured: Lauren during her rescue from 20 feet of mud by first responders who searched for survivors on January 9, 2018
Pictured: Lauren is carried to safety after her ordeal which was caused by a natural disaster
Pictured: Lauren and her mother today as they continue to heal seven and a half years after the catastrophe
Pictured: Jack’s Superman costume surfaced months after the mudslide when heavy rain dislodged the debris
Pictured: Jack as a five-year-old in the Superman outfit he used to play in. The superhero was his favorite DC Comics character and he kept the costume
The rescuers’ search with sniffer dogs had turned up nothing. As the days, weeks and months went on, they and a group of volunteers kept looking.
Cantin was desperate for the closure that she hoped the discovery of Jack’s remains might bring. She spoke to several ‘intuitivists’ – people with extraordinary perception who claim to receive messages through dreams.
‘I was open to anything if it led us to Jack,’ she said.
As time passed, remnants of the family’s life, such as household items and clothing, would surface whenever it rained. One of Lauren’s holiday dresses showed up after a storm.
Then, two of the intuitivists said they sensed that the place where Jack was buried had something to do with Superman. It had always been his favorite DC Comics character.
Incredibly, a volunteer found his Superman figurine. Later, a scrap of one of his Halloween costumes was pulled from the mud. Both had been kept in his bedroom for sentimental reasons.
Cantin was comforted to finally have even these small mementoes of her son – and by the thought that Jack must be buried near his belongings.
Still, it took a team of young anthropology students to discover his remains in May 2021, some three years after the flood. They used tiny brushes to clear the soil and found bone fragments which were thought to be Jack’s.
A celebration of life had been held in March 2018 when around 1,500 people paid tribute to the high school junior.
But, Cantin said, the burial was more intimate with a handful of close family and friends, two priests and some firefighters who had taken part in the rescue.
‘They were traumatized and sad that there had been two missing kids – Jack and a two-year-old girl named Lydia,’ she said. ‘They came to the cemetery and seemed grateful to be there.’
Pictured: An unidentified woman takes refuge in a tree during the July 4, 2025, flood that inundated Kerr County in Texas and surrounding areas
Pictured: The devastation in a Holladay, Utah, neighborhood after a mudslide slammed into a number of houses
As for Cantin, intensive therapy sessions, including treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, and grief counseling have helped with the healing process. Lauren, described by her mother as the most resilient person she knows, did the same.
Now retired from her sales and marketing job promoting medical devices, she said that the tragedy had given new purpose to life. She has become an advocate for those who have experienced trauma, offering inspiration and hope through example.
She would also like to see better early warning systems in place, such as sirens, so that people have more time to evacuate areas threatened by a natural disaster.
In 2023, she published a memoir, Where Yellow Flowers Bloom: A True Story of Hope through Unimaginable Loss, which she described as a cathartic process.
‘I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anyone but, in a weird way, there have been silver linings I wouldn’t have seen without it taking place’ Cantin said. ‘I notice more and am grateful for more because I understand we are not promised tomorrow.
‘I went to bed that night with my family of four, not realizing that the next morning I wouldn’t have that anymore.’
To those mourning the victims of the Texas flood and other natural disasters, Cantin advised that they should not be afraid to ask others for help and guidance.
‘You can move forward after trauma,’ she said. ‘I’m doing just that and trying to look to the future.’
