Photograph caption dated November 10, 1964 reads, "Burbank resident, Bill Ray, looks at his new car which was moved 50 feet down Cypress Street by the flood and mudslide yesterday. Damage to homes and cars was extensive. Police are attempting to estimate property losses as the cleanup of the area progresses.
Photograph caption dated November 10, 1964 reads, "Burbank firemen work frantically over William Miller, 49, who was pulled out of Sunset Canyon debris catch basin only minutes before, after being washed down Country Club Drive during Monday's flash flood in Burbank.".
Photograph caption dated November 10, 1964 reads, "Dr. Colin Hutchinson
of Burbank aids William Miller, flood victim, whose wife, Aimee, is lost
and presumed dead in yesterday's disastrous flood."
NOVEMBER 1964
https://semichorus.wordpress.com/2018/01/12/november-1964/
Exodus Begins From Burbank As Rain Falls
BURBANK (UPI) Residents voluntarily began leaving their mud threatened homes today as a steady rain started eating away soil in the fire-ravaged Burtank Hills. Police said the evacuation was proceeding in an orderly fashion. Citv police, firemen and road crews were standing by, geared for the threat of more massive mud slides which already have caused considerable damage in the Country Club Canvon area and open spaces.
At the same time, police resumed the search for Aimee Miller. 47, the wife of Frank Sinatra’s pianist. She disappeared Monday when a mudslide swept her home and narrowly spared her husband and 17-year-old daughter. “Right now we don’t know what’s going to happen.” said Sgt. Edward Cassidy of the Burbank Police Department. “That whole hillside is just hanging by a thread and a steady rain started about 8:30 p.m.”
Cassidy said city crews, firemen and policemen were stationed at a command post at the top of Olive Avenue near the threatened Country Club Canyon area. Cassidy said that homes located near the top of Country Club Canyon were threatened as well as those in basin-type terrain at the bottom of the canyon. Emil Kurtz, the district U.S. Weather forecaster for Los Angeles, predicted the Burbank area would receive up to one inch of rain from a new storm front which moved into Southern California today.
William Miller, 49, Sinatra’s pianist for many years, was injured seriously Monday while trying to save his wife, Aimee, 47. Their daughter, Meredith, escaped by making a perilous 90-minute climb over the Verdugo Mountains. Friends of Sinatra reported that he helped rescuers look for Mrs. Miller Monday night before the search was temporarily halted about 10:15 p.m., PST.
The Miller home, valued at $35,000, was damaged extensively. Police speculated that Mrs. Miller might have been buried under tons of mud and debris piled 20-30 feet deep about three-fourths of a mile from the home. While being treated for scratches at Community Hospital, Miss Miller—unaware that her mother was missing—told newsmen of her ordeal; “It was like a flash flood. The mud just came down the canyon and filled one side of the house. We shut that off, but then it started breaking the house up.
“I said, ‘we have to get out of here.’ I ran out the back way and up the mountain before the house started falling apart.” Miss Miller said she climbed sleep cliffs by holding onto plants and scrub brush. “When I got halfway up, I looked back,” she continued. “Mud was going in one side of the house and coming out the other. The walls were broken and mud was pouring out, I kept going.”
When she
reached high ground Miss Miller flagged a truck driver for help.
Miller, who remained with his wife, tried to save her when she was
washed out of their home. He later was found by rescuers about
three-fourths of a mile from the house, clinging to an automobile. The
pianist was taken to Community Hospital, where attendants reported his
condition was “serious but not critical.” His daughter went to the home
of friends after she was treated at the hospital.
UPI story; November 10, 1964. Sinatra later identified her body.
Update:
Bill Miller received a little more than $100,000 in compensation for the death of his wife, but only after a 10-year-long legal battle that eventually reached the California Supreme Court. A jury trial had awarded him $128,000 against the Flood Control District and City of Burbank, of which they both appealed — although Burbank later settled out of court.
Amazingly, the contractor of the house was not held responsible for their building on a notoriously bad curve of Country Club Drive, nor for failing to construct a retaining wall, both of which contributed to the tragedy.
https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/3d/8/689.html
Does anyone know history about Aimee Miller?
ReplyDeleteMore specifically, Meredith? Did she marry? Is she alive? I lived at this location for a long while. Pretty sure Meredith was loved very much.
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