Authorities in California declared a state of emergency on Wednesday as the West Coast braced for the third major downpour in a week, which threatened to bring intense wind, landslides, and more floods to cities around the state.
Days of continuous air rivers have pounded Northern and Central California, flooding rivers, bursting levees, and sopping the land. Atmospheric rivers are plumes of tropical moisture that deliver heavy rain and snow. Due to the soil's saturation from the rains, the state is particularly vulnerable to more downpours.
A flood warning was in effect for the majority of the area, and numerous settlements received evacuation orders. Authorities advised other locals to stay inside and avoid travelling on roads that can flood or turn into hazardous obstacle courses full of dead trees and power lines.
According to PowerOutage.us, approximately 100,000 Californians were without electricity as of Wednesday night, with the majority of the blackouts occurring in regions along the state's coast. Long-lasting blackouts are expected, officials warned, and the storm's effects might make repairs challenging.
Nancy Ward, California's recently hired director of emergency services, stated in a briefing that "we predict that this may be one of the most severe and damaging sequence of storms to touch down in California in the last five years."
It's anticipated that the storms will keep coming for at least another week.
After years of severe drought, rain clouds are now a welcome sight in California. But as the downpours mounted, locals and state officials appeared to say: We wanted rain, but not this.
Trees in dry environments have been severely harmed, leaving them more prone to falling down suddenly in the face of strong winds and pelting rain.
The California Department of Water Resources' director, Karla Nemeth, stated that "we're transitioning from an exceptional drought to an extreme flood." That indicates that many of our trees are under stress following three years of severe drought.
The "signature of this specific catastrophe," according to her, will be trees falling, which will bring down power lines and worsen water problems.
In the Bay Area, a storm on New Year's Eve locked drivers in their vehicles and flooded San Francisco's streets. As a result, flights were impacted, a neighbourhood was evacuated, and at least one person died as a result of the storm.
According to authorities, the 19-year-old woman who was killed was driving through standing water in the North Bay community of Fairfield when she collided with a utility pole and died as a result, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
15 residences in Richmond, about 30 miles to the southwest, were evacuated due to a landslide risk, according to Mayor Tom Butt. Without any other housing options, the relocated residents were lodged in a motel.
Sandbags were once again heaped against doors in San Francisco proper, which was still drying out from one of its wettest days ever on Saturday. Numerous flights were cancelled at the city's international airport.
Atmospheric rivers are drenching the West Coast. Describe them.
Coastal communities, Mendocino and Sonoma counties, particularly the regions close to the Russian and Navarro rivers, were particularly warned of dangerous storm conditions and serious flooding risks by officials elsewhere. These areas were expected to experience dramatic swells of the Russian and Navarro rivers.
Duncan Stewart, who has lived in the same trailer in the Mirabel Trail Park in Forestville, California for ten years, described the situation as "a nightmare." His belongings were packed into his ageing blue pickup. "I'm 73 years old, and I don't handle this well. In essence, everyone is only interested in themselves. Enough is enough,
On the Russian River, which is anticipated to surge to 39.7 feet by Sunday, is where the park is located.
The Russian River Valley in Sonoma County, in particular, is renowned for its wines. There are 15,000 acres of vineyards there. By Wednesday night, some of them were sopping wet from the pools of water and thick mud in the ground beneath the grapevines. A portion of River Road, a significant two-lane road running through the centre of Sonoma County, had also begun to flood. Soon after, Guerneville and some neighbouring towns experienced power outages due to blustery winds and falling trees.
Residents in San Mateo County, south of San Francisco, were still suffering the effects of earlier downpours, so authorities had already declared a local emergency. Approximately 100 individuals were transferred to motels after being evacuated from a mobile home park and a community of farmworker housing. Parks were shut down like other places, and many schools were shuttered. The county's utilities customers who were without electricity made up about 12% of the total.
Authorities around the state were also paying close attention to areas that had recently burnt since the charred earth there could quickly turn into catastrophic debris flows and cause one disaster to lead to another. The burn scars left by the 2020 August Complex fire, the Caldor and Dixie fires, and the Mosquito Fire from the previous year are where this one-two punch is most likely to occur, according to the National Weather Service.
Even in Southern California, where less rain was anticipated, but where fire zones in the counties of Los Angeles and Santa Barbara prompted evacuations, there was danger.
According to Nemeth of the state's water resources department, it doesn't take much precipitation during a series of storms to cause considerable damage. However, she expressed confidence that California's extensive network of levees and reservoirs, which is part of state and federal flood management infrastructure, will stand up.
We think we have ample ability to absorb the precipitation from these impending storms, she said.
The deluge has offered much-needed respite to parched land for the agriculture sector, the largest in the nation and the state's economic engine, but it also has its own disadvantages. According to Evan Wiig of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, an organisation that supports small farmers, if the ground hasn't been well managed, valuable topsoil could wash away during the storms.
Since our reservoirs have already risen, Wiig said, "We're definitely in severe need of precipitation here, and in the larger scheme of things, sure, it's a good thing for California agriculture more generally." We only wish that it hadn't had to arrive all at once.
It was anticipated that the wind and rain would last through Wednesday night and into Thursday. Friday should see some relief from the storm, according to forecasters, although it will probably only last a short while. On the horizon are at least three additional atmospheric rivers.
Resilience is the key word to spread, according to a Wednesday bulletin from the National Weather Service office for the San Francisco Bay area. This storm is not "one and done."
Stewart and his neighbours in Forestville anticipated leaving their small riverside town for two weeks while the storms moved across the area.
