Evacuations, school closures as storm renews flood risks in Sacramento
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Northern California Storms
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An onslaught of powerful atmospheric river storms continued to strike Northern California on Monday, with severe impacts felt across the Sacramento region as residents braced for more lengthy power outages, harrowing winds and dire flood risk in some areas.
Extreme gusts Saturday night and early Sunday toppled large trees, damaging vehicles on Sacramento’s midtown and downtown grids while cutting power to more than 300,000 SMUD customers across the county.
National Weather Service forecasts predicted “extreme” impacts from the storm Monday and Tuesday, which could include up to 4 inches of rain in the Sacramento Valley. A short break in rainfall was anticipated Monday afternoon, forecasters said.
Two days after gusts topped 60 mph in Sacramento County, the weather service warned that similar wind speeds would be possible Monday. The weather service recorded a 52-mph gust at Sacramento International Airport just before 5 a.m. Monday, with gusts ranging from 35 mph to 45 mph observed across other parts of the county.
Here’s what else to know about the ongoing storm as it batters the capital region Monday.
Wilton levee crews rush to shore up trouble spots
In Wilton, levee crews continued to patch trouble spots Monday ahead of high water expected later this evening and were urging residents to heed evacuation orders and road closures.
Flows on the Cosumnes River at Michigan Bar were expected to hit 12 feet by midnight or 1 a.m. Tuesday, officials said at a midday news conference at Wilton Bridge on the Cosumnes River. Although the levels are less than the 16-foot flows seen on New Year’s Eve, officials say steady rains and saturated ground remain a major concern.
“These levees are saturated. We’re saturated. We’re wet out here,” Reclamation District 800 board member Leland Schneider told reporters beside a rushing Cosumnes. Levee officials are most concerned about the Bradley Ranch breach at the end of Bradley Ranch Road as crews continue to work to shore the trouble spot before waters again rise, Schneider said.
Those crews are working now with the state Department of Water Resources and Sacramento County to reinforce levees and watch hot spots. Meantime, Wilton Fire Protection District officials say California National Guard personnel and high-clearance vehicles are on call for potential rescue duty.
PG&E: Largest winter storm response ever, utility says
About 87,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers were without power across approximately 2,200 outage incidents throughout California as of early Monday afternoon, PG&E officials said.
The utility giant is in the midst of the largest response effort it has ever deployed during a winter storm event, said Adam Wright, PG&E’s chief operating officer, during a virtual news briefing Monday afternoon.
More than 5,800 total employees and contractors were working toward power restoration efforts, Wright said.
“We will continue to put safety first. We will not take any shortcuts when working to restore service,” Wright said. “Now, this may mean that in some cases, it will take longer to restore service, but we will work as quickly as safety allows.”
Across three major storms beginning on New Year’s Eve, PG&E crews have made about 1.6 million customer restorations across 42 counties, Wright said.
The most significant PG&E power outages as of Monday afternoon were in southern portions of the Bay Area, as well as much of the Central Coast.
Wright said the storms have created a “double whammy” for PG&E: “a loss of power from downed wires and poles, and restricted access to make assessments and repairs,” due to flooding and mudslides, as well as avalanche risk in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Damage to utility equipment has been “extensive,” he said, also making it difficult for PG&E to provide accurate restoration estimates.
Ted Schlaepfer, a PG&E meteorologist said northern portions of the utility company’s territory would likely see a brief break in severe weather Monday afternoon, while southern portions would see rain and heavy winds continue through the day.
After the short afternoon respite, more widespread outages were expected throughout most of PG&E’s service territory, as gusty winds and heavy widespread precipitation were forecast to resume Monday evening and continue into Tuesday.
Homeless man and woman killed in weekend storm
A man and woman were killed in separate incidents during the weekend storm in Sacramento County, coroner’s officials said. Both were experiencing homelessness, and each was found with a tree on top of their tent.
A woman died while in her tent after a tree fell on her around 6:45 p.m. Saturday, on an American River levee near the 700 block of North Fifth Street, according to the Sacramento Fire Department.
Other unhoused people helped pull the tree off the woman before fire crews rushed her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead, Fire Department officials said.
The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office on Monday identified the woman as 40-year-old Rebekah Ann Rohde.
On Sunday, 61-year-old Steven Sorensen was found dead in the area of Roseville Road near Tri Stations Road in North Highlands, the county said in a Monday news release.
The official causes of death for Rohde and Sorensen remain under investigation by the coroner.
The deaths are the fourth and fifth reported in Sacramento County linked to storms since New Year’s Eve. Three people were killed in south Sacramento County floodwaters from the New Year’s Eve storm, all recovered in or near vehicles, authorities said.
Mandatory evacuation ordered for Wilton
Sacramento County emergency officials on Sunday ordered the mandatory evacuation of Wilton and some surrounding areas due to high flood risk along the Cosumnes River.
The boundaries for the evacuation order are:
▪ North: Jackson Road (Highway 16)
▪ East: Grant Line Road, south to Bond Road, south to Highway 99
▪ South: Arno Road, west to Alta Mesa Road, south to Twin Cities Road, west to Clay Station Road
▪ West: Clay Station Road, north about 4 miles, then northwest to Jackson Road
County officials upgraded an advisory to a mandatory evacuation order shortly after 6 p.m. Sunday, warning that flooding was “imminent.”
Levee breeches near Wilton during the New Year’s Eve storm led the county to order Wilton residents to shelter in place for six days. That shelter order was lifted last Friday, as stormy weather briefly subsided.
Evacuation warnings issued in Vacaville
“Major” flooding was reported throughout Vacaville early Monday, prompting evacuation warnings for residential parts of the city, according to the Vacaville Police Department and Solano County Office of Emergency Services.
The warning includes homes near Alamo Drive, Tulare Drive and Peabody Road, authorities said.
I-80, Capital City Freeway traffic stalled by flooding
Flooded lanes were bringing traffic to a crawl on at least two major Sacramento highways during Monday morning commute hours.
All westbound lanes of Interstate 80 at the Longview Drive exit were flooded as of 7:30 a.m., according to the California Highway Patrol’s online activity log, as well as all northbound lanes of the Capital City Freeway near Fulton Avenue in Arden Arcade.
Caltrans in an update just after 11:30 a.m. said both highways were clear, though residual backups were expected.
Caltrans live traffic cameras showed westbound traffic on I-80 stalled as far east as Greenback Lane as of 8 a.m., with northbound Capital City Freeway also gridlocked.
The CHP as of 9 a.m. reported flooding on one lane in each direction of Highway 99, with southbound traffic slow near Fruitridge Road and northbound slow near Mack Road. Southbound Interstate 5 also saw light flooding in the slow lane, near the Q Street exit.
Meanwhile, in Yolo County, flooding has closed Highway 16 at County Road 87A west of Winters and on Interstate 505 at the Interstate 5 junction.
Schools closed, including Sacramento City Unified
All Sacramento City Unified School District campuses are closed Monday, with classes canceled on the scheduled first day back from winter break, due to widespread power outages and severe weather, district officials announced Sunday.
At least five campuses in Elk Grove Unified School District – C.W. Dillard Elementary, Cosumnes River Elementary, Joseph Sims Elementary, Las Flores High and William Daylor High – are also closed Monday. Elk Grove Unified announced the C.W. Dillard and Cosumnes River school closures Sunday evening, adding the three additional campus closures Monday morning.
Davis Joint Unified reported that all of its schools would be open as scheduled Monday, following power outages at several of its campuses over the weekend.
San Juan Unified schools return from winter break on Tuesday.
Sci-Tech Academy in Knights Landing was closed Monday. All other campuses across Woodland Joint Unified, as well as Winters Joint Unified and Esparto Unified in Yolo County, remained open. West Sacramento’s Washington Unified School District returns from winter break Wednesday.
UC Davis in an update Sunday evening said its campus would be open Monday.
Sacramento State in a social media post said its campus would be open this week, though some in-person services may be limited on a department-by-department basis.
No plan to open Sacramento Weir at this time
The state Department of Water Resources in a social media post shortly after 8:30 a.m. said it does not currently plan to open the Sacramento Weir.
Opening the weir would reroute water from the Sacramento River upstream of the I Street Bridge and the confluence with the American River to the Yolo bypass. DWR officials said in a Saturday briefing that all five other weirs on the Sacramento River are working as designed — those control points are gravity-fed compared to the Sacramento Weir, which is the only manually-controlled spillway.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rules dictate that the water level at the I Street gauge must be 29.87 feet for the Sacramento Weir to open. Model forecasts from the California Nevada River Forecast Center indicate the river is expected to crest at 27.8 feet around 2 p.m. Monday., 2 feet below that threshold.
The Sacramento Weir has not been opened since 2017.
Biden approves California emergency for storms
President Joe Biden early Monday morning approved an emergency declaration for California “due to the emergency conditions resulting from successive and severe winter storms, flooding, and mudslides.”
The declaration, which allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts, addresses danger to public health and safety in the counties of El Dorado, Los Angeles, Mariposa, Mendocino, Merced, Monterey, Napa, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, Stanislaus and Ventura.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom last Wednesday declared a statewide emergency due to the storms and flooding.
Tens of thousands without power in Sacramento area
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District as of 11 a.m. reported close to 35,000 customers throughout Sacramento County without power, with outages scattered throughout the utility company’s territory. That figure has fluctuated between about 25,000 and 40,000 since 7 a.m.
Nearly 350,000 SMUD customers lost power early Sunday morning, as gusts above 60 mph caused major damage to utility equipment.
Rain, wind to continue Tuesday
The latest weather service forecasts showed heavy rain continuing Tuesday, with thunderstorms possible Tuesday night near Sacramento.
Wet weather is expected to continue, with rain likely through at least Saturday. Precipitation amounts for later in the week are not yet settled.
Yet another atmospheric river is expected to hit California by the middle of this week, but will be focused farther north, with impacts in Sacramento remaining relatively minor.
This story was originally published January 9, 2023 at 7:59 AM.
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