MONTECITO: Tens of thousands of people were placed under evacuation orders in California on Tuesday as the state was hit by the latest devastation in a barrage of tornadoes that killed at least 17 people.
Torrential rains caused flooding, closed key highways, uprooted trees and swept away drivers and passengers – including a five-year-old boy who is missing in central California – as more rain and snow lashed America’s most has destroyed the most populous state.
About 110,000 California homes and businesses were without power Tuesday, according to the tracking site Poweroutage.us.
A fresh storm will sweep the state by Wednesday with up to seven inches (18 cm) of new rain in Northern California and several more feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the National Weather Service said.
The NWS described the “unrelenting onslaught of atmospheric river events” as the most powerful storm system since 2005.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said at least 34,000 people have been told to evacuate by the storm, with more at risk.
“The reality is that we are not out of the woods; we expect these storms to continue until at least the 18th of this month,” he told reporters.
“We now have 17 confirmed – and I underscore ‘confirmed’ sadly – only confirmed deaths.”
The town of Montecito, home to Britain’s Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle, was battered by rain – threatening dangerous mudslides on hillsides that had already been battered by weeks of rain. .
“Because the mountains are there, when it really rains, it comes down at a much higher rate… it’s dangerous very quickly,” resident Daniel De Moir told JEE News.
“That’s the price of living in such a beautiful place, when it rains like that, it’s devastating.”
Montecito, whose multimillion-dollar properties are surrounded by picturesque California countryside, is particularly vulnerable to landslides because it sits at the foot of a mountain range that was ravaged by fire five years ago.
Hundreds of square miles (km) burned, stripping hills of vegetation that normally hold the soil in place.
But the evacuation order for the city – home to stars including Ellen DeGeneres, Gwyneth Paltrow, Katy Perry, and Rob Lowe – was lifted on Tuesday.
Boy was swept away.
There were tragedies across the state.
Authorities in San Luis Obispo County called off the search for a five-year-old boy because the water was too rough for divers, JEE News reported, citing a county official.
The child, who fled with his mother in their car as it was submerged in floodwaters, has not been pronounced dead. The mother was rescued.
Two motorists were killed in a crash after a tree fell onto the road north of Bakersfield.
The devastation was widespread, in some areas entire communities were flooded.
Dominic King said his restaurant in Capitola was destroyed.
“It’s worse than expected,” he told JEE News.
“All my back windows are completely blown out. All my desks are scattered around my floor… and our floors were damaged, so I guess the waves came up from under the building.
“It’s not just me, the whole block is destroyed.”
The Golden State’s beaches were under a flood warning, and forecasters said the trouble would continue.
“There will be a short period of rain in the west late tonight before the next atmospheric river arrives on Wednesday. Moisture will increase ahead of a large storm in the eastern Pacific, which will produce heavy rain in northern California,” the NWS said. Gay,” the NWS said. .
Rain in drought
While heavy rain is not unusual for California during the winter, these showers are putting the state to the test.
They come as much of the western United States has endured two decades of a punishing drought that has seen a major increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires.
Scientists say that human-caused climate change, caused by the uncontrolled burning of fossil fuels, has supercharged these wild swings in weather.
But even the recent rains are not enough to end the drought completely.
Scientists say several years of above-average rainfall are needed to bring the reservoir back to healthy levels.
