“Since the mountains are right there, when it really rains, it comes down at a really high rate … It’s dangerous very quickly,” resident Daniel Demuir told AFP.
“That’s the price of living in such a beautiful place, when it rains like this, there’s a lot of destruction.”
Montecito, whose multimillion-dollar estate is surrounded by breathtaking California countryside, is particularly vulnerable to landslides because it sits at the foot of a mountain range that was ravaged by fire five years ago.
Hundreds of square miles (kilometres) were scorched, destroying the hills’ vegetation that normally holds the soil in place.
But an evacuation order for the city – home to stars including Ellen DeGeneres, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry and Rob Lowe – was lifted on Tuesday.