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LOS ANGELES – The death toll from an onslaught of violent storms sweeping across California rose to 12 as two major episodes promised more devastation and up to a foot of rain.
The National Weather Service warned that parts of the Sacramento area, which has been battered by high winds and overwhelming rains, could see 12 inches of rain by Wednesday night.
Santa Cruz County has also taken a big hit: Mudslides closed both southbound lanes of scenic Highway 17 and the Browns Valley Road Bridge collapsed into the small river beneath it.
“Two of the more energetic and moisture-laden parade of cyclones … are aiming directly for California,” the weather service forecast said. “The cumulative effect of successive heavy rainfall events will lead to … rapid water rises, mudslides and the potential for major river flooding.”
The first episode, already affecting the state early Monday, was expected to dump up to 5 inches of rain on the central California coast, the weather service warned. Another, due Tuesday, will primarily target locations farther south into Southern California.
“Flooding from Northern to Central California is expected to be widespread, even catastrophic in some locations around the coastal mountains and the northern and central Sierra,” AccuWeather meteorologist Joe Bauer said. He said more than a dozen monitored river locations are forecast to be above flood stage.
President Joe Biden, citing “emergency conditions resulting from successive and severe winter storms, flooding, and mudslides,” declared a federal emergency late Sunday, ordering federal assistance to supplement state, tribal and local response efforts.
NEWSOME DECLARES STATE OF EMERGENCY:California Gov. Newsom asks Biden administration to declare federal emergency ahead of brutal storms
Other developments:
- The U.S. Forest Service issued an avalanche warning until Wednesday for the greater Lake Tahoe area. Parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada are also under avalanche warnings.
- Nearly 140,000 homes and businesses across the state were without power early Monday, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us.
- The Los Angeles area braced for up to 8 inches of rain in foothill areas. High surf was expected through Tuesday. Wind gusts could exceed 60 mph at the coast and 70 mph in the mountains, prompting the weather service to post a wind advisory for portions of southwest California through 10 p.m. Monday.
- The California Office of Emergency Services and state leaders for the first time gave a news conference entirely in Spanish.
WHAT IS AN ‘ATMOSPHERIC RIVER’? These rivers of water vapor can extend thousands of miles.
Flash flood warning in Santa Cruz and surroundings
The weather service’s Bay Area office issued a flash flood warning through 3:45 p.m. PST for Santa Cruz and surrounding communities, home to more than 260,000 people and 75 schools.
Evacuation orders were issued in Santa Cruz County for about 32,000 residents living near rapidly rising rivers and creeks, according to Melodye Serino, the deputy county administrative officer.
Parts of the community of Felton in the Santa Cruz Mountains were inundated when the San Lorenzo River crested over its banks Monday morning, leaving cars partially submerged.
School teacher Nicole Beardsley, who grew up and lives in Felton, told the San Francisco Chronicle she was heading for work when she came to a submerged car on a flooded section of road and turned around.
“I’ve never seen the river this high before,” Beardsley told the newspaper. “I’ve seen it come up to the bridge there and the road wasn’t drivable, but it wasn’t up this high.”
Some residents took a relaxed attitude to the turmoil.
Nicole Martin, a third-generation owner of the Fern River Resort in Felton, said her clients sipped coffee, sat on cabin porches amid towering redwood trees and were “enjoying the show” as picnic tables and other debris floated down the river.
6 feet of snow forecast in Sierra
The Sierra Nevada will likely see heavy snow exceeding 6 feet across the higher elevations before the snow tapers off Wednesday morning, forecasters said. The state Department of Transportation warned motorists to stay off mountain roads after closing a stretch of U.S. 395 in Mono County, along the Eastern Sierra, because of heavy snow, ice and whiteout conditions.
Mammoth Mountain, an Eastern Sierra ski resort, already has received nearly 10 feet of snow, the National Weather Service reported.
Why could the latest storm be so damaging?
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had sought the federal emergency designation earlier Sunday, said the death toll from almost two weeks of storms had reached 12. And he warned that the worst impacts of the storms might have been felt yet.
“California is in the middle of a deadly barrage of winter storms and we are using every resource at our disposal to protect lives and limit damage,” Newsom said.
AccuWeather experts say the unrelenting “atmospheric rivers” have saturated much of the state and bloated rivers and streams, leaving the state susceptible to “extreme and historic levels” of storm damage.
A CLOSER LOOK:Graphics show how the coastal state has been drenched
HOW AN ATMOSPHERIC RIVER DEVELOPS:Graphics show atmospheric river soaking California’s Bay Area
Atmospheric rivers are ribbons of water vapor in the sky that can extend thousands of miles from the tropics to the western U.S. At 250 to 375 miles wide, they provide the fuel for massive rain and snowstorms that can cause flooding along the West Coast.
On Sunday alone, one thunderstorm moving into the Sacramento region was producing up to a half-inch of rain per hour.
Sacramento County struggles to recover
In the state capital, tens of thousands of electricity customers remained without power Monday, down from more than 350,000 after gusts of 60 mph knocked trees into power lines, according to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. Sacramento City schools were closed Monday because six campuses had no electricity.
The weather service posted a flood advisory for much of the Sacramento Valley, northern San Joaquin Valley and surrounding foothills. The Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services ordered residents of Wilton, about 20 miles southeast of downtown Sacramento, to evacuate Sunday night. Wilton is home to about 6,000 people.
“Flooding is imminent. Out of an abundance of caution, residents must leave now before roads become impassable,” the office of emergency services said in its evacuation order.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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