Devastation from the seemingly endless chain of storms over California has unfolded in slow motion, day after rain-soaked day, in nearly every corner of the state.
A married couple died in a rockslide in Yosemite National Park. A 5-year-old in San Miguel was swept away in rushing waters. Emergency crews have pulled bodies from floodwaters in Sacramento, and countless homes and businesses from Wine Country to the Los Angeles suburbs have been inundated.
After weeks of relentless rainfall, the toll is coming into view. Communities have faced flash floods, mudslides, debris damage and a range of other hazards as the storms, known as atmospheric rivers, have whipped across the landscape. At least 19 people have died.
The succession of heavy rains and, in some places, fierce winds that began around Christmas continued through this week. Some cities in the Bay Area and the Central Coast received more than half their annual precipitation for a normal year in just 16 days, according to the National Weather Service.
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The result has been not a clear path of destruction typical of a hurricane but instead pockets of catastrophic damage scattered across the state’s highly varied terrain — from coastal mountain ranges to central lowlands to city centers.
“This is wave after wave of these so-called atmospheric rivers hitting a very heterogenous landscape,” said Nicholas Pinter, associate director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “It’s impacting tens of millions of people, hundreds of miles up and down the West Coast.”
The situation underscores the challenges the country’s most populous state faces in responding to severe weather crises and preparing for future threats as climate change continues to fuel extreme weather systems such as these.
Another round of storms is set to arrive this weekend. While they are forecast to be somewhat weaker than those that struck earlier this month, even a modest amount of rain could bring renewed threats.
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Here is a survey of some of the destruction in several hard-hit places, from north to south.
Sacramento and Woodland
Sacramento and the surrounding area saw extensive flooding.
Networks of small rivers and creeks overflowed. Local levees breached. Stretches of one of the city’s main highways were submerged and farmlands flooded. The deluge engulfed cars, and some homes were filled to their second floors with water.
Winds with gusts topping 60 mph sent trees crashing onto rooftops and brought down power lines. Officials said more than 1,000 trees have fallen in Sacramento since the beginning of the month. Two people experiencing homelessness were killed when trees fell onto their tents, authorities said.
Many trees were already diseased and weakened by the ongoing drought, making them vulnerable to toppling. But the rains turned the ground into mush, enabling the winds to pull otherwise healthy trees from the soil, roots and all.
Santa Cruz, Capitola and Aptos
In Santa Cruz, ocean swells generated by the storms laid waste to an iconic beach in the surfer enclave.
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The surge carried parts of piers out to sea and dumped huge amounts of driftwood and other debris across the sand. In the nearby town of Capitola, the waters split a wharf in half.
Sections of the Santa Cruz downtown — constructed in the former flood plain of the San Lorenzo River before the city modified the waterway to make it run deeper and faster — experienced heavy flooding, with water filling seaside homes and businesses.
In other places, the soil was so waterlogged that chunks of roadway collapsed into the surf.
Merced and Planada
In the Central Valley, overflow from a small creek caused outsize damage in Merced, a city of 89,000 people known as the “Gateway to Yosemite” for its proximity to the national park.
Bear Creek, which flows across the north side of town, swelled over its banks, prompting evacuations and road closures. The waters turned entire neighborhoods into lakes, covering yards, rising into the first floors of homes and causing cars to float away.
Mandatory evacuations were also in effect this week for all 4,000 residents in Planada, which was similarly devastated by the overflow of a small river.
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Drought conditions preceding the recent onslaught of storms have so far helped stave off catastrophic flooding in many of the state’s major rivers. But the flooding of minor waterways could foreshadow more severe problems elsewhere if the rains continue, said Pinter, of UC Davis.
“What we’ve been seeing is a progressive escalation of flood issues,” Pinter said. “The big question now is whether you’re going to see the large-scale flood impacts.”
Fresno, Santa Barbara and Montecito
Other parts of the state saw the twin hazards of flooding and mudslides.
In Fresno, boulders set loose by the rain toppled onto a roadway, imperiling drivers.
Mudslides also blanketed patches of road in Santa Cruz and Montecito, the ultrawealthy seaside town that’s home to numerous celebrities, including Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
Nearby, in Santa Barbara, mudslide hazards prompted authorities to issue evacuation orders on the five-year anniversary of a deadly mudslide in the area.
Wildfires throughout the state create ideal conditions for mudslides. When the flames char the undergrowth on hills and mountains, the soil can’t hold water as easily. Downpours can send mud, debris and rocks tumbling downward.
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“You add one drop of water and it all slides down the hill,” said Jan Null, a meteorologist in the Bay Area. “As gravity takes it downhill, you have an avalanche that can wipe out houses and cars and people.”
Los Angeles
The storms’ effects were also pronounced in California’s urban centers. In Los Angeles, flooding and mudslides shuttered streets, and waters poured into the tunnels in the city’s historic Union Station.
Emergency crews have set to work digging out mud, clearing debris and patching roadway, while residents wring out their homes and belongings, hoping the next storms will spare them.
“We’re not out of the woods,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a news conference this week. “These conditions are serious and they are deadly.”
Editing by Julie Vitkovskaya and Kainaz Amaria. Video editing by Jayne Orenstein. Video graphics by Daron Taylor. Photo editing by Amanda Voisard. Map by Laris Karklis. Copy editing by Gaby Morera Di Núbila.
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