"It's been miserable": Yolo County horse therapy ranch has major setbacks following string of storms
YOLO COUNTY — A local non-profit organization that helps horses and people with emotional and physical disabilities is struggling to recover from major storm damage.
Much of the Yolo County facility remains underwater and therapy classes are being canceled. Shannon Personeni is dealing with a muddy mess.
"It's been miserable," she said.
Personeni is the founder of a therapeutic horse riding and off-track rehabilitation ranch in Yolo County known as TROTR. The organization offers adaptive riding classes to more than a hundred kids and adults with physical and emotional special needs.
"It's great for mental health. It's great for physical health," said volunteer Lisa Rapalyea.
But the series of recent storms have caused extensive damage to their 16 acres near Woodland.
"The water was actually coming up all the way up here into our barn," Personeni said.
Horses like Zeus and Zephyr are struggling to find high ground with water surrounding the ranch in nearly every direction, flooding the animal paddocks and washing out the dirt roads.
"I've never seen it like this before, just pouring rain, sideways rain from the wind," Personeni said.
Gusts were so strong it blew the steel door off of their biggest barn. The wind also blew over fenceposts and ripped the roofs off of other enclosures.
"This is probably the worst storm we've had in a long long time," Rapalyea said.
The damage was so extensive, they had to cancel their classes - which is their primary source of revenue.
"We aren't able to take the kids on their sensory rides, and that's kind of a bummer," Personeni said.
The horses, many of them rescued from racetracks, are also feeling stress from flooding.
"The horses were up to their knees in mud," Rapalyea said.
"Most of our horses spend most of their time outside in these large pasture areas and they're all cooped up now and going a little crazy," Personeni said.
It all adds up to tens of thousands of dollars in damage, which is a tough financial hit for a small non-profit. They're now just hoping the sunny days - and some donations - will help get them back in business.
Yolo County had declared a local state of emergency from the storms with an estimated $7 million in damage just to public infrastructure. The county has not yet been added to the federal disaster declaration.