San Luis Obispo Tribune
The storm that swept in from the Pacific is causing some serious havoc for California. Look no further than the levee in Chualar, California, that broke and allowed water to flow over the 101, trapping some twenty students in their gymnasium at school.
It kept on raining, so the levee went on and broke. The Chualar levee’s break has led to a serious overflow of rushing rainwater onto Highway 101, bisecting the hilly region of Northern California. “The mud flow and the intense downpour resulted in the road closures, as well as the flooding to residents in the community of Chualar,” local authorities advised.
The blocked road made it impossible for the parents of the roughly 20 students to make it to retrieve them from school. Roughly ten faculty and staff members were also trapped with the students. The staff set up cots and allowed the children to sleep over in the gymnasium of the school. Thankfully, no students were harmed during the flooding.
Two homes in the surrounding region were flooded, resulting in at least eight people seeking shelter in Chualar. Nearby Hollister was also experiencing serious rainfall and flooding, and was even forced to move some senior citizens from an assisted living home. Mabie Northside Skilled Nursing Facility had to evacuate the residents in order to get them out of the path of the flooding.
Highway 101 was so badly flooded that authorities had to warn motorists to stay away. The muddy, reddish floodwaters may have looked navigable in some areas, but, in reality, they were fast-moving and dangerous. Motorists should never drive their cars over flooding streets or moving water. It doesn’t take a lot of moving water to sweep your car downstream.
Folks on the West Coast are likely sick of hearing about “atmospheric rivers,” but yet another one of these moisture-guiding plumes is to blame for the major rainfall this week. By tomorrow, yet another storm will arrive in California, and this one is likely to bring significant rainfall, debris flow and flooding thanks to the atmospheric river.
