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Roads turn to rivers as storms drench California, claiming lives and leaving many in the dark [1]
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Date: 2023-01-11 05:29:41.622000+00:00
SAN DIEGO — The headaches and heartaches from deadly winter storms across much of California aren't likely to end soon.
Millions remain under flood warnings and thousands are without power from the severe weather that has turned roads into rivers, spurred rockfalls and mudslides and forced thousands from their homes.
The heavy rain across much of the state Tuesday will continue Wednesday in Northern California. And forecasters are calling for another storm-producing system at the end of the week into next week.
California's weather has been unrelenting, and it has killed at least 17 people, officials said Tuesday.
"Almost 100,000 Californians [are] living in places where it's unsafe to be in their homes right now," California Secretary for Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot said at an afternoon news conference Tuesday.
Fears of more flooding and mudslides persist because the ground is saturated, an unusual state amid California’s historic, three-year drought.
“Soils in California are saturated from above average rainfall over the past few weeks, which means it won’t take much additional rainfall to trigger flooding,” the federal Weather Prediction Center said in a forecast statement Tuesday.
Floodwater surrounds homes on Thornton Road in Merced, Calif., as storms continue to batter the state Tuesday. Noah Berger / AP
The city of San Francisco told residents Tuesday to take “shelter and do not travel” for three hours, starting about 12:30 p.m. PT, after the National Weather Service issued a flash-flood warning for the region.
Meteorologist Jan Null tweeted Tuesday that the rainy stretch from Dec. 26 to Monday was historic: "This is now San Francisco's 3rd wettest 15-day period, going back to the Gold Rush in 1849."
High winds closed Interstate 80 in both directions near the California-Nevada line.
And in Southern California, several routes in Angeles National Forest were closed.
The search resumed Tuesday for a child who was swept away when floodwater swamped a vehicle Monday near Paso Robles, said Scott Jalbert of the San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services.
The boy’s mother was rescued Monday.
As many as 30 first responders, including a search-and-rescue team and operators of search drones, were looking for the boy Tuesday. Officials had requested a helicopter-based search crew; it wasn’t clear whether weather permitted such flights.
To the south, in the city of Ventura, officials declared a local state of emergency in order to expedite disaster response and seek emergency funding, officials said in a statement. The city sustained flooding and damage from high surf, they said.
By Tuesday night, power company workers had whittled the number of homes and businesses in the dark to 75,778, according to PowerOutage.us.
Sacramento County was one of the hardest-hit, with about 12,000 customers still without power by the lunch hour, according to the outage tracker.
The rain appeared to be letting up in Beverly Hills on Tuesday afternoon. But organizers of the Golden Globes took no chances and set up tents so the gray-colored red carpet would remain dry when celebrities arrived.
Kevin Costner, who won for best performance in a television drama, said in an Instagram video Tuesday that he wouldn't attend because local flooding would make the trip difficult if not dangerous.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-storm-forces-thousands-flee-homes-leaves-1-dead-rcna65046
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