Crews Will Inspect Levees Around The Clock During Strong California Storm
RIO LINDA (CBS13) — Crews are inspecting local levees to make sure they hold up as a strong storm moves into the Sacramento area on Thursday.
The American River Flood Control Agency says it doesn't anticipate any major levee breaches or overflowing creeks, but they are checking them out just in case.
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Damone Moore has already stocked up on several sandbags for his home along Dry Creek, but he's already going to get more, especially after the heavy rain last week.
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"Last week when it was raining it actually flooded half of our street down here," he said. "We are going to sandbag the barriers and put a barrier around our door, try to stop as much as we can."
Moore is like many in the Rio Linda neighborhood who are worried about the creek overflowing, sending water into their homes.
Even though the area creeks appear low, flood control crews have been out all week patrolling, looking for signs of any damage or debris blocking the flow of water.
General Manager Tim Kerr says rain from upstream can flow down and inundate local creeks in a matter of hours.
"This is one of the creeks where the water levels can rise pretty rapidly when we get a local rain event," he said. "We might see the water get as high as 34 feet; right now we are down to 20."
The department will patrol 24 hours beginning on Thursday as mobile crews will check the levees and creeks almost every hour.
"We try to patrol enough so we can forecast the strength of the levee well before there would be any type of levee failure problem," he said.
But some like Moore want to make sure they have enough sandbags just in case.
"We made a couple trips yesterday, we started like 8 in the morning, and we look outside today and said, man we better get some more before it's too late," he said.
The flood control department says the worst may not come until Friday or even Saturday, after the rain is set to end.