Why were California’s storms so deadly? Flooded roads and falling trees posed greatest risks
A parade of atmospheric rivers has pummeled California since late December, leaving at least 19 people dead and one boy missing in a natural disaster that Gov. Gavin Newsom compared to “several hurricane systems.”
As another round of storms rolls in over the weekend, the state’s flood control system — already battered by persistent rainfall — will be put to the test. Seven rivers are likely to jump their banks this weekend, and the Monterey Peninsula could temporarily become an island, state officials said on Friday.
“We are not out of the woods yet,” said Nancy Ward, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, at a news conference Friday. “These storms continue to be dangerous.”
The director added that this onslaught has been one of the most deadly natural disasters in decades. More than 6,000 people remain under evacuation orders
Extreme weather events, while a fairly regular occurrence for the state, have been intensified by climate change.
This time, the dangers to Californians center on driving or being outside near drought-weakened trees.
Acting California Highway Patrol Commissioner Sean Duryee at a Friday news conference pointed to the risks on the road as he urged drivers to be careful.
“As we approach nearly 20 fatalities in this emergency, we look at those, and about half of them have involved motorists in their vehicles — those driving or riding in passenger vehicles. Some of those were preventable.”
Of the 19 people confirmed dead so far, at least nine were killed while driving during a storm, including three in Sacramento County and one in San Luis Obispo County. One little boy was washed away from a car in San Miguel.
As the storms continue, the national message to drivers, said Kim Nava, director of communication for Sacramento County, is “‘turn around; don’t drown.’ We are continuing that messaging and telling people to not drive around signs that indicate there is flooding and the road is closed.”
‘Extreme drought and then extreme storms’
Additionally, seven people were killed by falling trees, including two homeless storm victims in Sacramento.
Trees have become more likely to fall, an expert said, due to stress from the state’s drought.
Droughts dry out the landscape, and the surface of the ground becomes less absorbent, said Kimberly Duong, a civil engineer who works on urban drought management in Southern California. Any time a big storm hits ground that isn’t absorbing as much water, runoff wreaks more havoc.
“When you have the whiplash back-to-back events of extreme drought and then extreme storms, they don’t exactly cancel each other out,” Duong said. “There’s this effect of getting too much, and then too little, and then too much, and then too little. And that has repercussions beyond just whether we have enough water to drink.”
California is a state of weather extremes, and, in one sense, the punishing storms are par for the course. Less than two years ago, Gov. Newsom pleaded with the White House for more support fighting Western wildfires.
This month, Newsom wrote in a letter to President Joe Biden that between Dec. 24 and Jan. 18, “22 trillion gallons of water will have fallen on the state… (enough) to cover the entire state under 15 inches of water.” The governor requested major disaster assistance in 49 of California’s 58 counties.
Central Coast likely to suffer this weekend
The Central Coast is expected to be hit particularly hard this weekend. Rivers are likely to flood, mudslides could follow the rain, and the Monterey Peninsula could be cut off from the rest of the state.
There have been two confirmed storm deaths in counties on the Central Coast so far, and a 5-year-old boy, Kyle Doan, is still missing after he was swept away by floodwaters while he and his mother were trying to get to his school Monday morning on a road that had not been closed.
In Santa Barbara County, people living along the Santa Ynez River have been urged to evacuate.
Scotty Jalbert, San Luis Obispo County’s manager of emergency services, said that the recent storm was a slow-moving system that lingered over the area, dropping a record-breaking amount of rainfall at a higher rate. The brutal storm drenched the Central Coast on Monday and Tuesday, flooding creeks and roads, burying homes and businesses under a torrential tide of mud and debris and knocking out power to thousands. The storm coming in this weekend will likely hit the Central Coast hardest.
And even though the new storm is weaker — in the County of San Luis Obispo, it’s only expected to drop between 1 inch and 3 inches of rain — at this point, a weaker storm could have damaging effects on the already drenched region.
“The soils are loose, the trees are sitting there,” Jalbert said, “and then we get hit with 34 mph winds (that) drops over trees and power lines.” Moving forward in the rainy season, “As the breaks for drainage between the storms lessen, and the strong thunderstorms increase in intensity, we have a higher likelihood of something bad happening.”
And although state emergency workers are focusing efforts — and anxieties — on the Central Coast over the coming days, the dynamics at play in San Luis Obispo are the same statewide.
“Things like levees get soaked and more susceptible to failure,” said Nicholas Pinter, associate director of UC Davis’ Center for Watershed Sciences. “We’ve seen a lot of storm damage in California — statewide and in the Sacramento area. And not to downplay any of it, but we have not seen the worst-case scenario yet.”
This story was originally published January 14, 2023 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Why were California’s storms so deadly? Flooded roads and falling trees posed greatest risks."
