Second body found in Sacramento County near scene of New Year’s Eve flooding, CHP says
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Northern California Storms
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A second body has been found in a rural part of south Sacramento County flooded by a strong New Year’s Eve “atmospheric river” storm, authorities said Wednesday, as Northern California braced for another powerful storm likely to bring more widespread flooding this week.
It’s at least the third death in Northern California blamed on the storms.
California Highway Patrol officers found the body of a woman while recovering vehicles Wednesday morning in an area near Dillard Road, which runs south of Elk Grove and Wilton, according to Officer Mark Leavitt, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol’s South Sacramento office.
Officers discovered the woman’s body around 10 a.m., Leavitt said. She was outside of a vehicle.
On Wednesday night, the Coroner’s Office identified the woman as 57-year-old Mei Keng Lam of San Leandro.
Authorities presume the woman was associated with one of the vehicles that had been swept away in the flooding, Leavitt said, but officials had not confirmed that, nor determined with which vehicle she may have been linked to.
It is at least the second authorities have connected to flooding in Sacramento County. Officials with the Cosumnes Community Service District Fire Department said previously that crews located a body inside a vehicle found Sunday morning, also along Dillard Road, near Highway 99.
A third person to die from the storms, a 72-year-old man, was found dead near a falling tree in Santa Cruz.
Leavitt said crews working in the CHP South Sacramento jurisdiction since Saturday’s big storm have towed about 150 vehicles that washed away in the flooding, including four Wednesday morning near Dillard Road.
This story was originally published January 4, 2023 at 1:46 PM.
