Winter Storm: Cameron Park residents react to flooding, evacuation order
CAMERON PARK — In rain boots, jeans, and a well-loved rani jacket, a Cameron Park resident walked the streets of his neighborhood on Saturday, ready to help his neighbors. He's lived in the same home for nearly 50 years, but the New Year's Eve flooding and the downpour was a first.
"It's up to my front door, blocked off with sandbags," said 47-year-old Tom Rutz.
The street doesn't have the proper drainage for this amount of water. So Rutz's neighbor attempted to set up a barricade between the flooded street and driveway to slow the feet of water inching toward the inside of the house Saturday afternoon.
At the same time, marked vehicles with the El Dorado County Sheriff's Office drove through flooded roadways to warn residents in certain parts of Cameron Park that they were under an evacuation order.
As of Saturday evening, the areas in the evacuation order are between Cameron Park Lake, Piper Court, Salida Way, and Bonanza Drive in Cameron Park. According to neighbors, these homes sit where Deer Creek and Cameron Park Lake meet downhill, causing flooding when it rains, but nothing like what closed some roads on Saturday in the area.
"It's crazy, totally crazy," said Greg Cardwell, an 8-year resident in the Air Park Estates neighborhood, part of the evacuation order.
Cardwell has a plan for rainy days, built up through experience. When he first moved into the home, his backyard flooded. Ever since, he has kept sub-pumps on hand, and for major storms, like the atmospheric river that moved through on Saturday, an industrial pump to quickly push water out of the backyard and into the front yard.
He also planned to stay home, even in the evacuation order, knowing he was prepared to keep water out of the home. He also had no plans to drive, especially in the dark, as water levels in some parts of his neighborhood were too high to drive through safely.
