Search continues in Yosemite dust

Friday, July 12, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

"He was a good boy," Rodriguez said Thursday from her Montebello home. "He respected his parents. He was good in school, and he always tried to be No. 1 in everything he did."

Rodriguez said her son, Emiliano Morales, had just completed his freshman year in college. Flags flew at half-staff Thursday at Loyola High School in Los Angeles, where Morales had attended.

"We all remember Emi as a very upbeat, playful, smiling -- a nice guy. Someone whom any teacher would love to have in the classroom," said his former high school teacher, the Rev. Tom McCormick.

In addition to Morales' death, up to 11 people were injured Wednesday when a huge slab of granite "literally exploded" off a Glacier Point cliff, spawning a hurricane wind that toppled trees and a dust cloud that blotted out the sun.

The massive chunk of rock, 300-400 feet wide, fell more than 2,000 feet into Yosemite Valley before turning to powder on impact, coating a 50-acre area with an inch of granite dust, according to the National Park Service.

"It literally exploded," Assistant Chief Ranger Don Coelho said. "The dust cloud was so big that it was like driving through the worst fog you could imagine, but the dust cloud was made of granite."

Crews planned to continue their search early today for any other possible victims.

Morales was struck near an ice cream stand that also was crushed.

"I'm mad but I don't know who to be mad at," Rodriguez said. "At him for going, at Mother Nature, at God, I don't know. I just have this anger and I can't let it out because I don't know who to throw it at.

"I'm never going to see my son again. I'll never be able to know what his future would have been, what he would have accomplished."

At Memorial Medical Center in Modesto, the parents of one of the victims, 17-year-old Kelly Booth, told reporters their daughter had no memory of the incident.

"She doesn't remember anything," said her father, Chris Booth. "Darkness, she remembers darkness. She doesn't remember being dug out."

Kelly Booth, a recent graduate of Pioneer High School in Whittier, was listed in fair condition after plastic surgery to repair a laceration over one eye. She also suffered superficial injuries to her arms and torso.

Hisano Hamada, 18, also a recent graduate of Pioneer High, was in critical condition at nearby Doctors Medical Center in Modesto with a broken arm, leg and neck injuries, spokeswoman Sharon Haarsma said.

Chris Booth said the girls were part of a small group of recent high school graduate celebrating the end of school.

The other victims suffered only minor injuries, park officials said.

All parts of Yosemite remained open except the slide area at the start of the John Muir Trail at Happy Isles, park spokesman Scott Gediman said. The trail winds up to Vernal and Nevada falls, then to the top of 7,214-foot elevation Glacier Point and on through the southern Sierra high country.