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ByChristopherWeber and John Rogers TheAssociatedPress LOS ANGELES Richard Harvell saw the mud and water coming and knew he had to get out of the flash- flood zone where he'd been camping at the foot of the Tehachapi Mountains. He almost made it. Harvell, 67, was knocked off his feet by a boulder and swept away by mud and wa- ter as he tried to climb into his truck Thursday while a ferocious thunderstorm sent mud, water and debris down a mountainside, inun- dating roads, homes and ve- hicles. Family and friends have joined a Kern County Sher- iff's Department rescue team in searching for him since Friday, their efforts sometimes interrupted by bad weather. On Monday the team brought out cadaver dogs, Harvell's daughter Susan Garcia told The Associated Press. But she added that she, her five siblings and their mother are holding out hope he's alive. "We're not going to give up hope until they find him one way or another," she said, adding her fa- ther, a Vietnam War vet- eran, knew how to survive in the rugged desert area near Boron, where he's lived for years. "He's definitely able to live off the grid if he had to," she said. "If it's possi- ble for someone to survive this it would be him." Teams searched the foot of the Tehachapi Moun- tains, in the open desert near communities hit hard by mudslides. The area, which saw up to 6 feet of muck come down, is south of State Route 58 in Te- hachapi, where Thursday's powerful thunderstorms triggered massive debris flows that trapped more than 100 cars, buses, RVs and big-rig trucks. Garcia said her father and a boyhood friend were camping in the area when they saw the water rap- idly rising. Harvell left his camping trailer to try get in his truck and move to safer ground. His friend watched helplessly as he was washed away. On Monday crews hauled away the last of the trapped vehicles, but tons of hard- ened mud still needs to be removed before traffic starts flowing again, offi- cials said. Drainage systems also needed to be cleared along an 8-mile stretch of the highway about 80 miles north of downtown Los An- geles, said Florene Trainor, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation. Officials hope to reopen the highway by Thursday at the latest. Geologists determined that nearby hillsides were stable, so there were no fears of another mudslide if it started raining again, Caltrans officials said. The area got some weekend drizzle, but no serious rain, and a dry period was devel- oping, forecasters said. To the south, Los Ange- les County crews reopened stretches of five roads in mountain communities about 40 miles north of Los Angeles that also were in- undated during the flood- ing. The reopening Sunday came"wellaheadoforiginal forecasts," with more than 40 bulldozers, dump trucks and other heavy equipment working through the week- end to shift an estimated 200,000 cubic yards of mud, according to a Los Angeles County Public Works state- ment. Work continued on two other roads in the Lake Hughes and Lake Elizabeth areas. Nearly 3 inches of rain fell in 30 minutes Thursday in the Leona Valley area of Los Angeles County, the Na- tional Weather Service said. Hundreds of cars also got stuck on Interstate 5, a ma- jor artery, but those vehicles were removed and the free- way reopened late Friday. Homeowners in north- ern Los Angeles County communities spent their weekend digging mud out of their houses. At least one of the homes in the area is considered a total loss after flooding ripped it from its founda- tion, Kerjon Lee, a spokes- man for county Public Works, said Saturday. Crews were assessing homes in the area, and Lee said the num- ber of those destroyed could rise. To the east, severe weather hit Nevada and Arizona on Sunday. Wind damaged buildings and knocked down trees and utility poles in the Phoe- nix area, while many miles of U.S. Highway 95 linking Las Vegas and Reno were closed due to flooding from south of Tonopah to north of Goldfield. State Route 267 between the California state line and U.S. 95 also remained closed. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Fa mi ly j oi ns s ea rc h fo r ma n swept away during flood KABC-TV This image made from video shows some of hundreds of big rigs and cars stranded on State Highway 58near Mojave on Friday a er torrential rains caused mudslides that carried away vehicles and closed roads about 70miles north of Los Angeles. THOMAS CORDOVA — THE DAILY BREEZE Cal State University faculty demonstrate a er holding a strike vote Monday in Long Beach. By Lisa Leff The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO Faculty members at the California State University's 23 cam- puses started voting Mon- day on whether to permit their labor union to call a strike over stalled salary negotiations. The strike authorization vote being held online and in person is at least the fourth that the California Faculty Association has held in eight years. Bal- loting is scheduled to run through Oct. 28 unless a settlement is reached. The union, which repre- sents about 25,000 profes- sors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches, and the Cal State system have been negotiating since May on the size of the pay raises union members will get this school year. The faculty association is seeking a 5 percent sal- ary increase along with a 2.7 percent pay bump based on years of service. The university is offering raises of 2 percent, which is what other CSU employ- ees received. "After years of stagnant faculty wages, the fac- ulty on our public univer- sity campuses are angry, and we are ready for this strike vote," CFA President Jennifer Eagan said. "We work hard to provide qual- ity education for our stu- dents, but we also need to support our families." The vote taking place over the next 10 days would authorize the union to de- clare a strike or other pro- tests if the contract talks remain unsuccessful. Nodateshavebeensetfor a possible walkout, and the earliest that onewouldhap- pen is January, Eagan said. Union members staged rallies and conducted in- formational picketing at five campuses Monday to build support for the 5 per- cent raises. Local politi- cians and representatives from other labor organiza- tions joined in. CSU is the nation's larg- est public university sys- tem, with about 460,000 students. It has not been subject to a full faculty strike since system-wide collective bargaining be- gan in the early 1980s. Union members autho- rized strikes in 2007, 2011 and 2012. Strikes were averted in 2007 and 2012 when negotiators for the administration and the union reached settlements. A one-day walkout was staged at two campuses in 2011. Cal State faculty voting on major strike over contract EDUCATION PAUL SAKUMA — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE An Amazon.com package is being delivered by UPS in Palo Alto. By Mae Anderson The Associated Press NEWYORK Amazon is step- ping up its fight against bo- gus product reviews on its site, suing more than 1,000 people for allegedly offer- ing to post glowing write- ups for as little as $5 apiece. The complaint, filed in state court in Seattle on Friday, takes aim at what is believed to be a burgeon- ing practice online: Some people try to make money by writing five-star testi- monials about products they have never even tried. And some companies try to boost sales by commission- ing such reviews. Online shoppers are re- lying more and more on consumer reviews on ev- erything from restaurant meals and Uber rides to hotel rooms and iPhone cases. About 45 percent of consumers consider prod- uct reviews when weighing an online purchase, accord- ing to Forrester Research. Retailers have tried to crack down on paid-for bo- gus reviews in a variety of ways. Other sites that de- pend on customer-gener- ated reviews, including Yelp and TripAdvisor, use com- puter algorithms and teams of investigators to detect fraudulent write-ups. In April, Amazon, the na- tion's largest online retailer, sued several sites that of- fered to produce positive reviews. In the latest law- suit, the company is going after writers of the reviews themselves who have ac- counts on freelance mar- ketplace Fiverr.com. The writers promise five- star reviews to companies that sell products on Ama- zon.com, according to the complaint. In many cases, the writers ask the sellers themselves to write the re- view, and then put their name on it, the lawsuit al- leges. In one example, a Fiverr seller named "bess98" said she would provide an "awe- some" review if the seller provided the text. Anyone who buys some- thing off Amazon is con- sidered a verified customer and can write an online re- view about the product. That's one way Amazon tries to guard against bo- gus reviews. In at least one instance, however, a would-be re- viewer offered to receive an empty envelope from a seller to make it look as if the person had actually bought the product, accord- ing to the lawsuit. The defendants in the lawsuit are identified only by their online handles be- cause Amazon is still work- ing to determine their real names. The Seattle company is suing for unspecified dam- ages and an order forcing the users to stop writing fake reviews. It said the of- fenders are liable for breach of contract for violating Amazon's terms of service. In a statement, Ama- zon said the complaint is not against Fiverr.com but against individuals selling reviews and said the vast majority of the write-ups on Amazon.com are authentic. Fiverr said it removes services that violate its terms of use. "The challenge of mer- chants soliciting illegiti- mate reviews is one that faces all marketplaces and online platforms," Fiverr said in a statement. Crackdown: Amazon sues to st op p ho ny p ro du ct r ev ie ws ONLINE RETAILER | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2015 8 A