I LOVE Happy Endings! God Gets The Glory!

Snowbound family's 'Help' Sign leads to rescue!

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(CNN) -- Stranded in the snowy California woods for three days after losing their way while searching for a Christmas tree, a father and his three children fashioned a "Help" sign out of twigs on a nearby unpaved road, according to the helicopter pilots who found them.

Lexi and Joshua Dominguez exit a helicopter Wednesday, shortly after being found. (story continued below)

(pic abovel)Lexi and Joshua Dominguez exit a helicopter Wednesday, shortly after being found.

The four sought shelter from the snow in a culvert and removed their sodden socks in an effort to stay warm and dry while they waited for rescue, the pilots said.

Frederick Dominguez said that during the three-day ordeal, he and his children slept inside a log for warmth and ripped apart their shirts to wrap their wet, freezing feet.

"You just go to survival mode," he said. "Every parent would do that. You would do anything, sacrifice yourself, because these are your kids."

Dominguez and his children -- Christopher, 18; Lexi, 14; and Joshua, 12 -- were reported missing Monday night by Dominguez's former wife and the children's mother, Lisa Sams, according to police in Paradise, California, a town of 27,000 people about 90 miles north of Sacramento. Video Watch the family talk about their "scary" ordeal »

"I'm glad I'm home. Praise God," Dominguez told reporters after exiting a chopper at the command post. "It was awful."

Asked how he survived, he replied, "Jesus Christ."


Dominguez said he used branches and sticks to spell out the word "help" near the culvert, where the three slept the last two nights -- at times sleeping with their feet inside each other's shirts to help stave off frostbite.

He said his daughter was the first to hear a California Highway Patrol helicopter overhead. He said he ran though several feet of snow barefooted to wave it down.

"When they turned around, man, I was just praising God and saying, 'Thank you Lord, thank you Lord,' because I knew we had made it," he said.

Police vehicles equipped with snow chains rumbled up mountain roads to help conduct the search, which also involved a snowmobile and dogs. More than 80 searchers scoured the woods Wednesday until the four were found about 1 p.m. (4 p.m. ET).

Officer Steve Ward said he was piloting the helicopter out ahead of bad weather when he spotted Dominguez coming out of the culvert and waving. "We were very lucky that we just saw this guy at the last second."

Paramedic Flight Officer Dave White, who was with Ward, said that after the two shut down the helicopter and waved the family over, all four came running. "The little girl was in tears," he said.

White said the family was found north of where ground crews were searching. The pilots could see a "Help" sign they had made with twigs on a nearby four-wheel-drive road, he said.

Christopher Dominguez told CNN's Anderson Cooper the family got lost Sunday searching for a tree, which they had chopped down but later abandoned. He said they didn't have food, heavy coats or other provisions to help prepare for the cold nights.

"We weren't prepared at all," he said. "We just thought we were going to go up to the mountains, get our tree and go back home. It didn't turn out that way."

All four appeared to be in good condition as they were brought by chopper to the command post and taken to ambulances.

Wendy Wilson, the children's aunt, told CNN's Rick Sanchez the two younger children had some frostbite on their toes and a touch of hypothermia, but were expected to make a full recovery.

Butte County Search and Rescue dispatcher Madde Watts said, "they had angels with them, for sure."

The search riveted those in Paradise and beyond.

Mayor Alan White, whose son played soccer on the same team as Joshua last year, said he and many others in and around Paradise have cut Christmas trees in the same place where the family vanished. When winter weather sours there, he said, people in the woods can get lost quickly.

"If you're 50 feet from your car, you might not be able to find it," he said.

Although police found the family's car, it offered no clues as to where they might have gone.

The inaccessible area is beyond the reach of cell phones, authorities have said.
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Paradise High principal Mike Lerch said students had volunteered to help in the search. "This is a good family," he said.

Christopher Dominguez had graduated from the school a few months ago, Lerch said, and Lexi is a sophomore there. Joshua attends Paradise Intermediate School.

Wanna Relax, Unwind & Just Get Away?? Come Down to the California Disaster Relief Sites!!

Just had to hit the drum 3x's in honor of my mom, Mama Ivent!

She hooked me up on some info regarding the lifestyles of the rich & famous staying tres chic, even during times of devastation.

Assuming that my mom (God bless her!) had received erroneous information, I did what all good bloggers do. I googled her information!

Needless to say, she was right...again.

Read and take a peek into the world of affluence, as they still have the comforts of home, without bureaucratic red tape, no delays in receiving relief, and no one sleeping in arenas, streets or dead people laying out in the open for all to see!

*sorry, poor people in Louisiana-don't take it personal!*

Question: Would citizens of South-Central Cali receive this type of relief if L.A., Inglewood etc burned down, or would they receive the same treatment that's similar to the poor residents of Louisiana??

Read the story below:

Acupuncture and massage help the victims of a very Californian disaster
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Massages, acupuncture and stress counseling are being offered to around 10,000 wildfire evacuees gathering at the Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego — along with Starbucks coffee, beef empanadas and fresh Caesar salads.

There are stacks of magazines, free telephone calls to anywhere in the United States, toys for the children and entertainment provided by a live blues band. A local pizza restaurant’s donation of food has been turned down because there is already too much to eat.

“The people are happy. They have everything here,” said the Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, after touring the site. “Nobody does disasters better than California,” agreed David Paulison, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

It is all a long way from the scenes inside another stadium — the Superdome in New Orleans — two years ago when thousands sheltered from the floods of Hurricane Katrina for several days without proper food or water supplies, sanitation or government assistance.


The fires consuming hundreds of thousands of acres in southern California coincided with heavy rainfall this week in New Orleans which overwhelmed the drainage and pumping system and left some streets under water for the first time since Katrina.

Charmaine Marchand, the Louisiana state representative for the Lower Ninth ward in New Orleans — which was hit hardest by the hurricane — was amazed when told of the care available to displaced Californians yesterday.

“Some of my constituents could certainly have done with a massage a couple of years ago,” she said.

The wildfires, which have forced the evacuation of at least 500,000 people including a clutch of Hollywood celebrities, are the biggest emergency America has faced since.

Ms Marchand yesterday suggested that the difference was that it was happening in one of the wealthiest corners of America, rather than one of the poorest. “I guess the fact that California is such a rich state — and a Republican-run state — is a big factor in the help being offered to them,” she said.

President Bush’s Administration, heavily criticised for responding slowly and incompetently to Katrina, is hoping to demonstrate it has learnt from mistakes made in the previous disaster.

Mr Bush has cancelled his engagements so that he can fly to California today to “witness first-hand what people are going through,” said aides. Two years ago, in a cataclysmic public relations catastrophe he was photographed gazing imperiously down from Air Force One at Katrina’s floods as he belatedly returned to Washington from his holiday. In contrast yesterday, after receiving updates on the battle to control the wildfires at an emergency cabinet meeting, he said: “I believe the effort is well-coordinated I know we’re getting the manpower and assets on the ground that have been requested by the state and local governments.”

The President added that he had told Mr Schwarzenegger that “if he needs anything and we’re able to provide it, we will do so”. He has signed a disaster declaration for California which puts in motion long-term federal recovery programmes to help California and some of the estimated 1,500 people who have lost their homes in the fires.

“Americans all across this land care deeply about them,” Mr Bush said, “we’re concerned about their safety. We’re concerned about their property.”

Mr Paulison appeared on a succession of morning television yesterday to emphasise there would be no repeat of the Katrina experience — when “things didn’t run so smoothly” — saying: “This is a new FEMA.”

The White House press secretary, Dana Perino, said: “We have learnt those lessons and those lessons are being applied. There’s increased co-ordination and communication and earlier communication and co-ordination between the federal, state and local governments.”

In New Orleans yesterday, Ms Marchand said the real test “would be the aftermath of the fires when people tried to rebuild”. Thousands of people from New Orleans were still living in FEMA trailers and many more had been unable to obtain compensation for the loss of their homes. “I don’t think FEMA has learnt any lessons. If they had, New Orleans would not still be in the situation we find ourselves in now.”

(image courtesy, Google Images)