this is "nightline." >> tonight, inside the mudslides. >> we had to survive. because there wasn't anybody on this earth that could come help us. >> stories from the heart of the destruction in california. incredible rescues some responders say they will never forget. >> it was like she was being birthed from the earth. it's the most significant rescue of my life. >> the fallout in montecito. once an american paradise. now at least 20 dead. much of the community in ruins. >> it looked like a world war i battlefield. plus, extraordinary. the 13-year-old skater girl who just became the youngest gold medalist in x games history, competing against full-grown adults. >> she's here to win this thing. >> just an ordinary teen from an ordinary home. >> a half pipe? >> yeah.

no big deal. >> well, sort of. now could this wiz kid be on the fast track to the 2020 olympics? but first, the "nightline" 5. number 1 in just 60 seconds. next time, i want you on my bowling team.

[ laughs ] rodney. bowling. classic. can i help you? it's me. jamie. i'm not good with names. celeste! i trained you. we share a locker. -moose man! -yo. he gets two name your price tools. he gets two? i literally coined the phrase, "we give you coverage options based on your budget." -that's me. -jamie! -yeah. -you're back from italy. [ both smooch ] ciao bella. good evening. thank you for joining us. we begin with the deadly mudslides in montecito,

california. at least 20 people are reported dead and several missing as authorities say most homes are without drinkable water and natural gas lines have been shut off. tonight we take you inside those harrowing moments of this perfect storm of natural disasters. as survivors recount their night of terror. here's abc's matt gutman. >> you could say that montecito is the home of the american dream in the golden state. >> everyone that lives here cherishes it, loves it. >> the most beautiful place on earth. >> we had just the most amazing landscaping here. it was paradise. it was bliss. >> it's precisely what makes it so beautiful that makes it a dangerous place to live sometimes. i've covered earthquakes and fires and tornadoes and hurricanes. but nothing seemed to have moved

and reshaped the landscape as did these mudslides. >> been on for 20 years and i've never been a part of anything with the magnitude and size of this incident. >> it was this apocalyptic set of conditions. on the one hand you had a storm delivering a 200-year rain right on this small town of montecito. the town itself was backed up against a mountain that had been scarred by these fires. and so in a short period of time you have a wind and rainstorm. the mudslides that just erupted from the mountains, gouging hundreds of millions of tons of debris, setting off these mud flows, massive fires, and a number of deaths. >> the only words i can really think of to describe what it looked like was it looked like a world war i battlefield. >> we need you to get out here as soon as possible.

that fire is right there. >> what the firefighters did is basically let the thomas fire burn everything around santa barbara and montecito in the hopes of saving the town itself. >> scorching that hillside, burning the trees, the shrubs. all the vegetation. so now you have basically a naked hill that has nothing to hold all that dirt and mud in place. >> we'll see rainfall rates between 1/2 and 1 inch per hour. >> after it accumulates for a while, that pounding pressure of the rain could cause some of these hillsides to slide. >> there was obviously an awareness that there was potential for mudslides. they had prepositions fire and rescue teams before the rain event. they had also issued mandatory evacuations and some voluntary evacuations. >> we should have evacuated. but there's a question as to if i was even in a voluntary evacuation point. because it was east of my house. >> reporter: rain is something that you can foresee. and you know, maybe we'll take

the temperature of this kind of storm and see how it goes. that turned out to be a fatal decision for so many people. the rain basically came at the worst of times. it started about 2:00 to 3:00 a.m. and by 4:00 a.m. these creek beds were just filled with debris, boulders, 30-foot logs. people thought they'd just sleep through this rainstorm. and suddenly this sound started increasing. >> the flash flood's right there! get out of here! go! >> i was 2 1/2 blocks away, and i heard one rumble, and i knew that was it. >> close the door! >> i had to do everything i could to make it back alive. >> wake dad up. >> help try to save my parents. >> wake dad up! wake up! >> it was loud and mean.

and the scariest roar you ever heard. trees slamming down. >> it was too late for too many families. literally people had rivers of debris inside their houses by the time they realized that there even was a mudslide. >> it's up to the counter over there. >> reporter: and my mom, dad, and i were right there watching the mud flow out the back door. every second wondering what was going to happen. if the walls were going to cave in. but that little hallway protected us. those are our hand prints hanging on. >> we pray for everyone here. >> we had to survive because there wasn't anybody on this earth that could come help us. >> trying to make access into the community of montecito, there was no way in. large trees had fallen over roads. power lines, power poles had all fallen down in the roads.

a firefighter kind of knew the area really well and suggested we try and just try some side roads and get, in and it worked. parked the engine right here, we got our flashlights out and started looking and shining into this area. large powerful flashlights. and that was the moment when we realized the devastation. >> the mud just swept the homes off the foundations. in other cases houses just became these conduits for rivers of mud and boulders. >> that was a car now it's -- i don't know if it's a telephone pole or a tree is lying on top of it. but there's almost nothing left of this mangled metal. >> everything that could be disfigured, mangled, or crushed was. >> lots of obstacles and challenges for rescue personnel to get to homes, let alone to get people out of them. >> for the first couple of hours even rescue crews, until they got helicopters up, had no idea

how vast the scope of this disaster was. >> our priority was rescuing these people as fast as possible. we knew the more time went by the weaker people would be, the colder they would be, and the chance of survival was decreasi decreasing. >> i want you to hear that. that's a gas pipe that ruptured. and what's astonishing is that it's still going. >> it literally sounded like jets were taking off. we were really listening for victims and people calling for help. it was very hard to hear over the gas lines at that time. >> power tools, chainsaws, buzz cutters, anything that could create a spark could also set them all on fire. so they had to basically use their hands or pickaxes just to try to get people out of the debris. >> it was probably about 6:30 in the morning. the sun had come up. we were doing a more thorough sweep. someone heard a grunt.

we waited and heard another kind of a grunt. almost like a gasp. like a last breath. so we started digging. we worked so hard. we weren't hearing any grunts anymore. and everyone's pulling these branches back just to get access. had a child -- oh, god. what an exhilarating feeling. all of us used all of our strength to pull these branches off, and it took two, three people just to pull her out of the mud. it was like she was being birthed from the earth. completely covered in mud. limp. we weren't sure if she was alive yet. i immediately grabbed her. i cleared her mouth, cleared her

nostrils, and she gave a breath. we all needed that. it was a adrenaline boost to continue. it's the most significant rescue of my life. >> it's incredible that a human was able to survive any of that. >> as we stand here with people who have lost loved ones -- >> it's entirely likely that a lot of the people who lost homes and certainly the families of victims may never move back. >> we know a lot of these people were all connected. we've lost people we know. >> this puts everything into priority in perspective. you think you have things of value, but at the end of the day there's very little. >> we're all in this together, and we'll recover. >> our thanks to matt.

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just hours after her 13th birthday, brighton zeuner became the youngest gold medalist in x games history when she nailed her smith grime, her twist and lip slide. i have no idea what they are but they sound dangerous. so kids don't try this at home unless you want to become some kind of record-breaking prodigy.

here's abc's nick watt. >> reporter: this little girl, pink board, big smile, dreamed of one day growing up to become an x games gold medalist. that one day came just one day after her 13th birthday. >> she's utilizing every piece of the course. >> i just want to get my run in and then have fun. >> reporter: the youngest gold medalist in x games history. we're not talking some age group category. >> i was so nervous. like all the girls were all nervous. >> reporter: we're talking the big leagues against full-grown athletes, the women's skateboard park event. >> wow. sticking her entire run. >> reporter: aged 13. they say never meet your heroes. she beat them. >> they must be slightly annoyed. >> i don't think that. when i was younger, those were like -- they were the top girls i'd always look up to, and now i'm competing with them and i respect them and you know, we're just a big friendly family. >> the greatest birthday gift in the world.

>> i think that they love her and want to hug her and then they want to smack her around a little bit. >> brighton zeuner. >> oh, my gosh! >> becomes the youngest to ever win an x games gold medal. >> reporter: she won and the extreme sports world's jaw dropped. >> there's little kids saying like oh, i saw you on youtube, and then it's like -- it's kind of crazy. it's like, i don't know, like i'm 13 and it's kind of weird. >> so here's the gold medal. right here. >> reporter: in her bedroom next to more normal tween trappings. >> i love my makeup. here are my diaries right here. oh, god. this is cringy. >> reporter: why are you being so cringy about this? >> i don't know. my dad's mammoth family trip. >> reporter: but not everything here at home is so normal. judging by your back yard, your parents are quite supportive. >> uh, yeah. yeah. >> reporter: a halfpipe? >> yeah. no big deal.

i skate this every day. >> we often refer to it as like the field of dreams. >> reporter: they built it and they came, from local kids here in encinitas, california, to all-time legend tony hawk, ripping it up for a "thrasher" magazine feature. they've all skated here. >> she got to meet and skate with the best. >> reporter: brighton zeuner got into skateboarding because her big brother jack was into skateboarding and she was dragged to the park. >> i think when i was about like 8 that's when it all started. so everything happened at 8. but i was scared to drop in on ramps like this. >> reporter: not anymore. didn't take long before she was beating brother jack in competition. >> she's kind of a natural. >> kind of a natural you think? >> i wasn't. >> oh, really? >> that's not true. >> i didn't really care. >> really? i would care massively. massively. >> reporter: in her first competition just 8 years old she beat jack, came in fourth amongst 100 boys. there weren't many girls-only

competitions back then. squlu guys are still friends? >> oh, yeah. >> everything gs? >> yeah. he's still better than me at some stuff like street stuff, and i kind of own the whole contest thing. >> jack has become a cameraman, often filming little sis. she skates hours every day. why skateboarding not, i don't know, softball or ballet? >> just the freedom you get. and you can kind of -- i know this sounds cheesy. but escape. >> reporter: she now travels the world. coming up, shanghai and rio. >> it's cool. you know, getting those stamps on my passport. >> we go with. that's usually good for them. it keeps them grounded, keeps them out of trouble. >> reporter: which means school -- >> the school that they attend now is very open to a schedule that allows kids to travel the world. or just not be present all the time in school. >> reporter: skating is occasionally a kind of contact

sport. >> skateboarding teaches people about pain. >> one time i was on a -- i was skating a vert ramp in a demo. i did a trick going backwards and then i slipped out and hit my lip on my braces and then i had to sort of like pull my lip out of my braces. and it hurt so bad. >> it's in the back of your mind that when she's trying things that have a higher degree of difficulty and there's a chance that it could go wrong, it crosses your mind. >> reporter: her list of firsts is long. youngest female to ever compete in the x games at 11. youngest ever vans u.s. open winner. youngest female winner of california state games athlete of the year. >> there's like stereotypes that only boys can do it and it's a manly sport. and honestly, the girls have proven that we can share the sport. >> reporter: in an extreme sport historically dominated by grown men with nicknames like birdman and the flying tomato, she blazes a trail.

the first female skateboarder ever sponsored by red bull, arguably extreme sports' most sought after patron. >> size extra small. >> yes. even though i have a really big head. >> reporter: her sport will be an olympic sport at tokyo in 2020 for the first time ever. and she will be -- my math is terrible. 16? >> it's scary that she's going to be driving. >> are you going to be there? >> i mean, i hope so. fingers crossed. that's going to be -- that's going to push skateboarding. >> reporter: this is a ridiculous question. but what do you want to be when you grow up? >> i think i just want to -- i want to make a living off of skateboarding and, you know, me -- just see where it takes me. >> reporter: i'm nick watt for "nightline" in encinitas, california. next, we honor dr. martin luther king jr. the powerful speech he gave just days before he died. [ police sirens ] cameras.

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as we mark this dr. martin luther king jr. day we look back op his last public sermon. these moving prophetic remarks delivered just four days before he died. >> it may well be that we will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words and the violent actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence and indifference of the good people, who sit around who say wait on time. so however dark it is, however deep the angry feelings are and the violent explosions are, i can still sing "we shall overcome." >> king's daughter, the reverend bernice king, urged people to remember her father by doing "an act of kindness toward someone of