WATSONVILLE, Calif. (AP) — The latest atmospheric river to hit California prompted evacuation orders Tuesday for nearly 27,000 people due to risks of flooding and landslides.
On the state’s central coast, workers hauled trucks full of rocks to plug a broken levee on a river amid constant rain and wind.
Meteorologists warned of dangerous winds gusting up to 70 miles per hour (113 kilometers per hour), and there were several reports of downed trees. The outages affected more than 330,000 customers in northern and central parts of the state, according to the website poweroutage.us, which tracks power outages across the country.
Crews hastily stabilized a fractured levee on the Pajaro River Sunday, placing rocks and rocks to help fill the crack that opened late Friday about 70 miles (110 kilometers) south of San Francisco. Workers will later increase the elevation of that stretch to match the rest of the levee in the coming weeks to make it waterproof, authorities said.
Tuesday’s storm initially dumped light to moderate rains over the northern and central parts of the state. But the National Weather Service said the storm was moving faster than anticipated and most of the precipitation would move south.
“Even a small amount of rain could have major impacts,” Shaunna Murray of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency said at a news conference Tuesday.
Gusty winds damaged windows in a San Francisco skyscraper, causing glass to fall onto the street and forcing the evacuation of a building in the city’s financial district. So far no injuries were reported. A gust of 119 km/h (74 mph) was recorded at the city’s airport, the weather service said.
So far this winter, California has been hit by 10 other previous atmospheric rivers — long plumes of moisture from the Pacific Ocean — as well as strong storms driven by Arctic air that produced blizzard conditions.
On the southern California coast, evacuation orders began at 8 a.m. for Santa Barbara County and several other areas affected by wildfires in recent years, which increase the risk of flash flooding and debris flows.
The storm forced 40 counties to declare emergencies.
In addition to evacuation orders, more than 71,600 people were under evacuation notices and 546 were in shelters as of Tuesday morning, said Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California Office of Emergency Services. Updated figures were not immediately available.
More flooding is expected on the central coast, where the Pajaro River overflowed its banks from last week’s atmospheric river. As of Monday, authorities had received no reports of people dead or missing from the storms.
