Evacuation in California due to possible flooding
2023.01.10 02:28
Evacuation in California due to possible flooding
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – On Monday, the most recent in a series of Pacific storms that have been blamed for at least 12 deaths flooded California, forcing about 25,000 people, including the entire town of Montecito and the Santa Barbara coast areas nearby, to evacuate because of increased flood and mudslide dangers.
Authorities in 17 areas of California are concerned that a series of torrential downpours since late December could unleash lethal cascades of mud, boulders, and other debris in hillsides that have been stripped of vegetation by previous wildfires. This included the Montecito evacuation zone.
Five years ago, in January 2018, mudslides caused by heavy rains struck newly burned slopes and canyons around Montecito, a wealthy coastal enclave 90 miles northwest of Los Angeles, causing widespread damage and killing more than 20 people. The evacuations were made necessary because of this.
Raquel Zick, a spokesperson for the Santa Barbara County sheriff’s office, told Reuters that armored high-clearance BearCat SWAT vehicles were being used by deputies on flooded roads to rescue people trapped by high water.
Oprah Winfrey, a media mogul, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, a couple from the United Kingdom, are among the nearly 9,000 people who live in Montecito. Many of them have opulent homes in the picturesque town.
Whether or not they were among those forced to flee the area was not immediately clear. It was common knowledge that Winfrey spent the New Year’s holiday in Hawaii.
Ellen DeGeneres, an actress and comedian who grew up in Montecito, shared a video selfie on Twitter in which she stood in the rain next to a flooded torrent that was coursing through what she described as a normally dry creek bed close to her property.
Tweeting from a hooded jacket, the performer said that since her home was on higher ground, she should “shelter in place” rather than evacuate.
She stated in the video, “We need to be nicer to Mother Nature, because Mother Nature is not happy with us.” Let’s all contribute. Everyone, keep safe. Yikes.”
According to the Montecito Fire Department, “burn scars” posed a threat of mudslides, and the order to evacuate was given to all 15 districts of Montecito as well as portions of Santa Barbara and adjacent Carpinteria and Summerland.
A man was seen in a TMZ.com social media video paddling his kayak in the middle of Santa Barbara’s flooded street. According to the Los Angeles Times, sections of U.S. Highway 101 in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties were closed due to flooding and debris flows.
According to Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for the state Office of Emergency Services, around 14,000 people were ordered to leave four communities in Santa Cruz County early on Monday because of flash floods, high tides, and heavy runoff from nearby mountains.
Due to flood danger posed by breached levees along the Cosumnes River south of Sacramento, the state capital, nearly 4,000 more people in the town of Wilton remained under evacuation orders. According to Ferguson, evacuation orders were in effect for an additional 42,000 people living in roughly a dozen counties.
Another “atmospheric river” of dense moisture was pushed into California from the tropical Pacific by sprawling low-pressure systems churning offshore, causing the torrential rains and heavy snow in mountain areas.
Multiple back-to-back storms that have hit California since December 26 have been blamed for at least a dozen deaths, including the death of a toddler last week when a redwood tree blew over the trailer home his family was living in.
Climate change, according to experts, is making it harder to manage California’s precious water supplies while minimizing the risk of floods, mudslides, and wildfires because of the increasing frequency and intensity of such storms, which are also punctuated by extremely dry spells.
The six storms that have occurred since shortly after Christmas have been accompanied by pounding surf that has wreaked havoc on coastal communities, as well as strong, gale-force winds that have uprooted thousands of drought-weakened trees.
The most of California’s 39 million people will be affected by the most recent storm, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). Over the next few days, up to 5 inches of rain near the coast and more than a foot of snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains are expected.
Tens of thousands of Californians without power as a result of the state’s power grid being destroyed by the strong winds. Poweroutage.us data indicate that as many as 120,000 homes and businesses were without electricity on Monday morning.
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An emergency declaration that gives the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) permission to coordinate disaster relief efforts and mobilize emergency resources in California has been approved by President Joe Biden of the United States.
