Rob Lowe has had a "difficult week" in the wake of the Californian mudslides.
Rob Lowe
The 53-year-old actor was forced to evacuate his home in Santa Barbara County last month when the deadly Thomas Fire ripped through the Californian district, and after the land was stripped of vegetation, the rain that fell in the area last week caused devastating mudslides.
Speaking about dealing with the crisis, Rob said: "It's been a really difficult week. The sadness I can't kind of get beyond it. I know that it still is unfortunately 20 dead. They did find one of the missing alive two days ago, but three are missing as of today."
The 'Parks and Recreation' actor was out of town for a meeting when the mudslides took hold, but his 24-year-old son Matthew - whom he has with his wife Sheryl Berkoff - called him to "panic" about the destruction.
During an interview on 'The Ellen Degeneres Show' which is set to air on Thursday (18.01.18), Rob - who also has 22-year-old son John with his spouse - said: "At 4 o'clock in the morning I got a FaceTime from Matthew panicking. Fires everywhere because gas lines were rupturing and it was like armageddon ... People saw the fires, they woke up, it was like daylight, couldn't figure out what was going on, went out to see what was going on and then were washed away. It was literally a perfect storm of bad events."
Rob's comments come after show host Ellen Degeneres spoke last week about having to leave her home after the mudslides tore through Montecito.
She said: "Usually, we're grateful for rain, especially in California, but not after the largest fire in the history of California.
"So again, we evacuated because they feared mudslides. After everything we've been through, I think a lot of people thought they were just being overly cautious but exactly what they feared happened.
"The rain triggered massive mudslides. Massive.
"They're finding people and bodies and I mean, you hear the word mudslide and you have no idea the impact that it has, but after the largest fire in California history, it's catastrophic. It is beyond recognisable."
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