Mr Farrell ran inside to warn his parents, and within a minute, a boulder ploughed through the kitchen door. The mud flow went through the home and burst through a backdoor.
But the story of Morgan Corey, 25, and her 12-year-old sister, Sawyer, have struck a chord on social media after their frantic friend posted on Twitter asking for help to find her friend's missing daughters after "a mudslide devoured their home".
"It looked like a World War I battlefield," Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.
The death toll from the mudslide has risen to 17 after bodies were recovered overnight. At least 13 more, including the sisters, are missing, while 28 are reportedly injured.
The family was asleep at 3am when the mudslide hit. Their mother, Carie, is reportedly in intensive care after she was found 1.5 kilometres away from the scene. A third daughter, who the Daily Mail reports is Sawyer's twin, Summer, was located safe.
To anyone in the Montecito area, please keep an eye out for my 3 cousins: Summer, Sawyer, and Morgan Corey. They are...
Posted by Taylor Kessler on Tuesday, 9 January 2018
Summer's boyfriend, Mikey, was reportedly out with a shovel looking for the girls after their house was swept away.
"With a shovel in one hand, a man who asked to be identified only as Mikey, smoked a cigarette and then started shovelling mud and debris from the intersection," reported the Los Angeles Times.
"They are good people," Mikey said with tears in his eyes, reported the Times.
"I'm hoping to find them."
Victims of the mudslide have reported boulders and trees slamming through houses while desperate families clung to rooftops awaiting rescue on Tuesday.
Anxious family members awaited word on loved ones overnight as rescue crews searched for more than a dozen people missing in the region in Southern California destroyed an estimated 100 houses and swept away cars. The social media response over the missing sisters has prompted other families to do the same.
"Her boyfriend saw her open the door and was swept away," Hayden Gower told CBS' Jasmine Viel about his missing mother, Josie Gower.
Homes were wrecked by a torrent of mud, trees and boulders that flowed down a fire-scarred mountain and slammed into this coastal town in Santa Barbara County early Tuesday.
The drenching storm that triggered the disaster had cleared out, giving way to sunny skies, as hundreds of searchers carefully combed a landscape strewn with hazards.
"We've gotten multiple reports of rescuers falling through manholes that were covered with mud, swimming pools that were covered up with mud," said Anthony Buzzerio, a Los Angeles County fire battalion chief.
"The mud is acting like a candy shell on ice cream. It's crusty on top but soft underneath, so we're having to be very careful."
Buzzerio led a team of 14 firefighters and six dogs in thick debris. They used long-handled tools to search the muck in the painstaking task. Teams rescued three people Wednesday, but they also discovered two more bodies, raising the death count to 17, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.
People in Montecito had counted themselves lucky last month after the biggest wildfire in California history spared the town. But it was the fire that led to the mudslide, by burning away vegetation.
"We totally thought we were out of the woods," said Jennifer Markham, whose home escaped damage in both disasters.
"I was frozen yesterday morning thinking, 'This is a million times worse than that fire ever was".'
Only an estimated 10 to 15 per cent of residents fled when ordered and much of the damage occurred where evacuations were voluntary.
- With additional reporting by Associated Press writers John Antczak and Michael Balsamo in Los Angeles
