What we know about the 6 people who died in Northern California storms this week
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Northern California Storms
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Two major storms have pummeled California over the past week and led to at least six deaths. The first storm began New Year’s Eve, causing floods and toppling trees; the second storm began Wednesday and caused serious damage in the Bay Area.
Here’s what we know about the six people who have died in the storms — the youngest was a toddler, and the oldest was a man in his 70s.
Steven Sampson
Steven Sampson of McAlester, Oklahoma, was reported washed off Dillard Road near Highway 99 in south Sacramento County during the New Year’s Eve storm. He was found dead in his submerged vehicle Jan. 1. Sampson was 45.
Mei Keng Lam
Mei Keng Lam of San Leandro was found Wednesday near her flooded car, several yards off Dillard Road. Her daughter-in-law said on Instagram that she went missing during the storm on New Year’s Eve; she said the family had tried tracking her phone, which gave them a location near Elk Grove, and the phone lost signal after that. Lam was 57.
Gary Yules
Gary Yules, 72, died just a few days after his birthday when a cypress tree fell on him at Lighthouse Field State Beach in Santa Cruz in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve. He was a retired certified public accountant.
Katherine Martinez
Katherine “Kathy” Martinez of Orland went missing in the early morning on New Year’s Day, one of her sons wrote on GoFundMe. Her family, including her two sons, Joshua and Justin Martinez, spent several frantic days trying to locate her. She was found Wednesday evening in her submerged vehicle off of New Hope Road, which had flooded. Martinez was 61 and, her son wrote, “well-loved.”
Aeon Tocchini
Aeon “Goldie” Tocchini, 2, died Wednesday when a redwood tree fell directly on the double-wide trailer where he lived in Occidental. As the Press-Democrat reported, Tocchini was sitting on the couch when the tree came crashing down.
“He was the joy of our family,” Liz Haskins, the child’s aunt, told the Press-Democrat. “He loved to dance and “shined like the sun,” she added.
“He represented something to our family,” she said, “and it was like hope to us.”
Haskins is raising money for the family through GoFundMe.
A Solano County teen
A 19-year-old woman died in a car crash in Fairfield Wednesday evening. KRON 4 reported that the woman was driving a little after 8:30 p.m. on Vanden Road, which was partially flooded, when she hydroplaned into a utility pole at One Lake.
This story was originally published January 5, 2023 at 3:25 PM.
