Everyone in California's Montecito ordered out amid deluge
As another powerful storm walloped California, a 5-year-old boy was swept away by floodwaters Monday on the state's central coast and an entire seaside community that is home to Prince Harry, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities was ordered to evacuate on the fifth anniversary of deadly mudslides there.
Tens of thousands of people remained without power, and some schools closed for the day. Streets and highways transformed into gushing rivers, trees toppled, mud slid and motorists growled as they hit roadblocks caused by fallen debris. The death toll from the relentless string of storms climbed from 12 to 14 on Monday, after two people were killed by falling trees, state officials said.
A roughly seven-hour search for the missing boy turned up only his shoe before officials called it off as water levels were too dangerous for divers, officials said. The boy has not been declared dead, said spokesperson Tony Cipolla of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.
The rescue team will "re-evaluate the weather conditions to see when they can resume the search," Cipolla added.
The boy's mother was driving a white truck when it became stranded in floodwaters just before 8 a.m. near Paso Robles, according to Tom Swanson, assistant chief of the Cal Fire/San Luis Obispo County Fire Department.
Bystanders were able to pull the mother out of the truck, but the boy was carried out of the vehicle and swept downstream, Swanson said. There was no evacuation order in the area at the time. A firefighter discovered one of the boy's shoes, but crews still had not found the child more than five hours later.
Meanwhile, south of Paso Robles, the entire community of Montecito and surrounding canyons scarred by recent wildfires were under an evacuation order that came on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide that killed 23 people and destroyed more than 100 homes in the coastal enclave.
The National Weather Service reported that at least 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain fell over 12 hours, with several more inches predicted before the latest storm system moves through the area with roads winding through wooded hillsides with large homes. Upscale Montecito is squeezed between mountains and the Pacific and is home to celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, Rob Lowe and Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the decision to evacuate nearly 10,000 people was "based on the continuing high rate of rainfall with no indication that that is going to change before nightfall." Creeks were overflowing, and many roads were flooded, he said.
Santa Barbara County announced Monday night that all public schools would be closed Tuesday.
Northbound lanes of U.S. 101, a key coastal route, were closed, along with several other highways and local roads.
Up the coast, evacuation orders were issued in coastal, woodsy Santa Cruz County for about 32,000 residents living near rain-swollen rivers and creeks, said Melodye Serino, the deputy county administrative officer. The San Lorenzo River was declared at flood stage, and video on social media showed a neighborhood flooded with muddy water surging up to a stop sign.
A large, muddy slide blocked both lanes of southbound Highway 17, a key but windy route into Santa Cruz from the San Francisco Bay Area. Vehicles were turned back at the summit as crews arrived to clean up.
Another mudslide also crashed down on SR-9 and Holiday Lane blocking the roadway. The California Highway Patrol Santa Cruz warned drivers in a tweet to avoid the area.
On Monday, the California Highway Patrol Fresno office tweeted a video of a rockslide on State Highway 168. As a result, Highway 168 was closed from the bottom of the four-lane portion of the roadway between Auberry Road and Lodge Road, CBS Bay Area reported.
"Avoid travel to Shaver Lake and above if at all possible!" CHP Fresno warned.
Despite the deadly nature of storms, which have killed at least a dozen people, residents of tiny, flooded Felton remained calm and upbeat.
Christine Patracuola, the owner of Rocky's Cafe for 25 years, handed out free coffee to customers whose homes lacked power Monday. Her staff couldn't come in because of closed roads, including a bridge over the San Lorenzo.
"A little coffee can't hurt anybody," she said. "You can't really change Mother Nature; you just have to roll with the punches and hope you don't get swept up into it."
Nicole Martin, third-generation owner of the Fern River Resort in Felton, said Monday that her clients sipped coffee, sat on cabin porches amid towering redwood trees, and were "enjoying the show" as picnic tables and other debris floated down the swollen San Lorenzo.
The river is usually about 60 feet (18 meters) below the cabins, Martin said, but it crept up to 12 feet (4 meters) from the cabins. Still, Martin said she wasn't worried — her family has owned the property for about 60 years, and her grandfather checked out conditions Monday and shrugged it off.
The resort prepared by getting about 8,000 pounds of sandbags, readying generators, and handing out lanterns to guests who opted to weather the storm in their cabins.
In Northern California, several districts closed schools. More than 35,000 customers remained without power in Sacramento, down from more than 350,000 a day earlier after gusts of 60 mph (97 kph) knocked majestic trees into power lines, according to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
The National Weather Service warned of a "relentless parade of atmospheric rivers" — long plumes of moisture stretching out into the Pacific that can drop staggering amounts of rain and snow. The precipitation expected over the next couple of days comes after storms last week knocked out power to thousands, flooded streets, and battered the coastline.
President Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration Monday to support storm response and relief efforts in more than a dozen counties, including Sacramento, Santa Cruz and Los Angeles.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said 12 people died as a result of violent weather during the past 10 days, and he warned that this week's storms could be even more dangerous and urged people to stay home.
The first of the newest, heavier storms prompted the weather service to issue a flood watch for a large portion of Northern and Central California, with 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimeters) of rain expected through Wednesday in the already saturated Sacramento-area foothills.
In the Los Angeles area, there was potential for as much as 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain in foothill areas late Monday and Tuesday. High surf was also expected on west-facing beaches.
In Southern California, over a dozen people were rescued from an island in the Ventura River that was affected by flash flooding.
The Ventura County Fire Department shared footage of multiple swift water rescue teams helping a large group of stranded people. In total 18 victims were rescued, seven by ladder, seven by air and four who were able to walk out, fire officials said.
One person required medical attention for minor injuries, officials said.
Since Dec. 26, San Francisco received more than 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain, while Mammoth Mountain, a popular ski area in the Eastern Sierra Nevada, got nearly 10 feet (3 meters) of snow, the National Weather Service said.
The storms won't be enough to officially end California's drought, but they have helped.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, expects a break in the rain after Jan. 18.
"That is my best guess right now, which is good because it will give the rivers in Northern California, and now in Central California, a chance to come down," he said.
