Sacramento County declares state of emergency over Feb 4 atmospheric river
SACRAMENTO — The atmospheric river that battered California nearly two weeks ago has caused extensive damage across the state.
Between mudslides, downed trees and powerlines, crews are still working on clean-up efforts around the clock.
In Sacramento, most damage has been dealt with just in time for yet another atmospheric river.
That one atmospheric river is costing California an estimated $11 billion, according to an AccuWeather report, after barreling through the state in early February.
Locally, that number is at least $12 million, and now, Sacramento County has declared a state of emergency for the February 4 storm.
"The big price tag right now was the damage done to the electricity grid," says Sacramento County spokesperson Matt Robinson.
Now, Sacramento County is asking for help from FEMA and state funding.
"We had about 150 downed trees. We had some damage done in our culvert areas. We're looking at the drainage systems that were hit hard," Robinson said.
The county says they're as ready as they can be for this weekend's storm, but say the redeeming factor in all this is that we've had a break between storms. It will give the ground a chance to absorb a lot of that water that's coming our way.
"Once the storm has passed, we'll assess the situation, go out look at flood areas, look at how many trees, the damage. Then we'd go to the board and say, 'We feel it's time to declare an emergency.' if you need sandbags, we have four sandbag locations open," Robinson said.
Those sandbag locations are:
Branch Center at 3847 Branch Center Rd.
Orangevale Community Center at 6826 Hazel Ave.
Jose P. Rizal Community Center at 7320 Florin Mall Dr.
Sacramento Metropolitan Fire Station #116 at 7995 Elwyn Ave.
The county supplies the sand and the bags, so all you need to do is bring a shovel.
"Within a week or two of every large wind storm, rain or not, we start to get the calls," said Frank Bowen, senior project manager at Regional Builders Inc.
Bowen went out to assess the damage of a tree that fell on a Curtis Park home. He said that while water is one culprit, wind is the real threat.
"Water first loosens the ground. If it just rains, it's probably OK most of the time, but once you get a couple of storms with the high winds, the ground can't hold the tree anymore and it gets pushed over."
He said his company is currently working on 20-30 similar cases from the storm, and this one isn't even the biggest one
"We always look at it like this. As long as no one got hurt, I can rebuild any building all day long," Bowen said.