Nurses board a boat to get home after their shift at Cottage Hospital
(Photo by Kathryn Barnes)
A 13-mile stretch of Highway 101 south of Santa Barbara remains closed Friday, meaning many people who live in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties are cut off from their jobs or families. Health care workers at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital have been taking boats. The day of the disaster, over 200 hospital employees were unable to get to work even as mudslide victims in critical condition began streaming into the emergency room. That left one other way to get there: the ocean.