Evacuation orders lifted in Santa Barbara County following Tuesday storm
Santa Barbara County officials are lifting all evacuation orders as of 8 a.m. Wednesday, the county’s Office of Emergency Management announced.
Residents in the Thomas, Whittier and Sherpa fire burn areas were asked to evacuate their homes by 4 p.m. Tuesday ahead of the storm expected Tuesday evening into Wednesday.
The burn areas posed a debris flow risk, the Office of Emergency Management said in a tweet. Tuesday night’s storm caused Caltrans to close Highway 101 on-ramps in the Montecito area, but they reopened by about 5:30 a.m., Caltrans spokesman Jim Shivers said in a tweet.
A flash flood warning in the Thomas Fire burn area was in effect until 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Office of Emergency Management.
The storm was a flashy one: residents throughout Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties saw lightning and Santa Barbara County Fire Department public information officer Mike Eliason captured dramatic shots of a lightning storm over Santa Barbara.
An atmospheric river is expected to drop between 2.5 and 4.25 inches of rain on the Central Coast between Tuesday and Thursday, PG&E meteorologist John Lindsey told The Tribune in a previous report.
