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Less than 20 miles down the coast from where emergency workers in Montecito are searching for victims of last week’s mudslides is the tiny beach town of La Conchita, where grief and vigilance are permanently intertwined.

With about 330 inhabitants, La Conchita offers a scale model of the delights of living in California — and of the risks: the fires, rising sea levels, mudslides and earthquakes.

The beach is only steps away. Lemons and avocados grow willingly in the abundant sunshine. Yet residents live in fear of the loose soil above them. In 1995 part of the steep hillside behind the town collapsed, sending a river of mud into the streets and damaging a dozen houses. Engineers built a wall, sinking steel I-beams, the type you might use to build a skyscraper, deep into the ground. Ten years later, after heavy rainfall, the hillside gave way again. Mud surged down the slope and deflected off the wall meant to protect the town, according to Mike Bell, a board member of the La Conchita Community Organization, which serves as a de facto local government.

Ten people were killed in that January 2005 mudslide. Their bodies were recovered but parts of their homes are still buried under a giant mound of soil, a monument to the town’s suffering and lingering fears.