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Here's what Skyland Road near the Santa Cruz Mountains summit looked like Wednesday. The blue van driver left his house in Los Gatos to buy candles at a nearby store during Tuesday's atmospheric river-powered storm. "I got home from work and the power was out," Albert Braden said. When Braden drove to the store and gas station through whipping winds and rain, the road was there. When he drove back an hour later, the road was gone. It was 10:20 p.m. and pitch black outside, so there was no way of seeing that Skyland Road had collapsed and washed down the mountainside. "I saw what I thought was mud, I stepped on the brake, and it was too late," he said. The van crashed into the 20-foot-wide gap. "It was really a shock. I thought I was going to drown in mud. It was a vertical wall 12 feet high. I pulled myself up by tree branches," he said. He grabbed his flashlight and cellphone out of the van before he slowly climbed to safety. While covered in mud, Braden called 911, and a CHP officer gave him a ride home. Amazingly, Braden was not hurt. "He seemed to be OK," neighbor Philip Anderson said. "It's pretty crazy." Anderson said a tow truck attempted to haul the van out of the gap Wednesday afternoon, but the rain-soaked ground was too unstable and the towing operation was too dangerous. A nearby tree threatened to topple over if the mountainside was disturbed again. The van remained in the gap Thursday. Braden said he had just moved from New York City to California last week, and started a new job at e-Bay on Monday. More heavy rainshowers returned on Thursday. Residents are using Stetson Road as an alternate route. RAW VIDEO: Bumper trees in San Lorenzo River READ MORE: San Lorenzo Valley schools closed, Highway 17 partially reopens PHOTOS: Wild 2017 storms on the Central Coast