Yolo County Levees Repaired As Authorities Prepare For More Rain
YOLO COUNTY (CBS13) — Blue skies peaked through Thursday, but more storms are on the way. This comes as the state more than tripled the amount of water released from Shasta Dam.
Cache Creek rose 20 feet in just under two days. It's down 30 feet since Wednesday afternoon, giving the hundreds of people who live along the levee a break.
"Wow that's pretty amazing," said one woman as she strolled along the levee looking at the debris along the treeline.
She was one of many Yolo County residents stopped by the levee in the town of Yolo to take a look for themselves.
"I have never seen it this high," she said.
READ: Community Of Yolo Still On High Alert After Flooding Concerns
Northern California has seen more rain so far this year than all of last year combined. All that runoff filled Cache Creek to just under 85 feet, a danger stage, where design levels were maxed.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Department of Water Resources was dealing with overtopping and trying to shore up soft spots with sandbags. Two miles upstream near County Road 18, an earthen levee sprang a leak and emergency services sprang info action filling it up with rocks.
"What we do in a flood fight is bring in rock and put all personnel, sandbags, so we can protect populations," said Dana Carey with Yolo County Emergency Services.
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With more water is on the way, authorities are more than tripling the water released from the Shasta Dam from 7,000 to 25,000 cubic feet per second.
"We're running out of room for more stormwater. Shasta is currently at 85 percent full," said Todd Plain, with the Bureau of Reclamation.
The power and speed of all that water could impact this area if combined with more record rainfall.
"For example, at 5000 cfs coming out off Keswick dam at the head of the sac river it can reach 100000 cfs about 30 miles downstream or so," said Plain.
