Storm-battered California braces itself for another wave of floods
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An aerial view of flooded buildings and farmland after rainstorms caused a levee to break, flooding Sacramento County roads and properties near Wilton, California, US.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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LOS ANGELES - After days of pounding rain, winds and snow, Californians woke up to sunny skies and waterlogged streets on New Year’s Day, scrambling to recover during a brief intermission before the next rainstorms that are forecast to hit the region later this week.
Northern California bore the brunt of an intense “atmospheric river” system that brought floods and landslides to parts of the West Coast on Saturday.
On Sunday, rescuers were still plucking trapped passengers from submerged vehicles, while bloated rivers and creeks spilled over banks. Streets in downtown San Francisco were still draining after the city nearly broke its record for the most rainfall on a single day.
The National Weather Service’s downtown site recorded 13.86cm on New Year’s Eve, 0.2cm shy of the 1994 record in more than 170 years of record keeping there – and 46.8 per cent of the monthly rainfall.
Agricultural workers in Sacramento County ushered in the new year by patching up a weakened levee system.
Firefighters and rescue crews combed through a rural section of Sacramento County on Sunday afternoon, searching for people who might be trapped in homes and cars.
Rescue crews circled the county’s flooded roads in helicopters and boats, finding vehicles either stuck in or submerged by floodwaters, according to a spokesperson for the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District.
The county conducted roughly 40 rescues over the course of around 24 hours, according to Dan Quiggle, deputy fire chief of operations for the Cosumnes Fire Department in Sacramento County.
Although severe damage was not widespread, one person died and several were injured as result of flooding, with most rescues occurring near the Cosumnes River, Quiggle said.
Multiple survivors were stranded in their vehicles for hours before being rescued, he said Sunday.
The storm is expected to move from Salt Lake City down to Phoenix, according to Bob Oravec, a forecaster at the National Weather Service. The severe storm is expected to bring rain to areas such as Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona.
On Sunday, more than 130,000 utilities customers were without power in California, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages.
The storm also caused power outages in Nevada, with tens of thousands of people without power in Washoe County. NYTIMES
A swing set is covered with debris after rainstorms caused a levee to break, flooding Sacramento County roads and properties near Wilton, California, US.
PHOTO: REUTERS
