Sacramento County braces for next round of storms, ratifies emergency proclamation
SACRAMENTO COUNTY -- Hit hard by New Year's day storms, Sacramento County is bracing for Mother Nature to put a target on its back once again.
Parts of the county are still flooded as Wednesday's storm brews, predicted to be stronger than the first round.
It's caused the county to declare a local emergency, ratified by a unanimous vote Tuesday at a special called meeting of the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors.
"Massive storms are not necessarily budgeted in the county general fund and we do need the resources to open up, to call in additional staff," said Janna Haynes, a spokesperson for the county.
A big priority for the county at this time is providing emergency shelter, especially for the homeless. The county is identifying surge shelters in case they are needed Wednesday.
"One of those other locations is Cal Expo. But it's not our only contingency plan," said Mary Jo Flynn-Nevins, Chief of Emergency Services for Sacramento.
Sacramento County announced Tuesday it is closing all of its parks through at least Thursday, due to the risk of falling trees.
For the unhoused living there, efforts have been ramped up to warn them.
"We have crews walking along with our park rangers, our behavioral health crew, our outreach team that are not only trying to get people to move to higher ground if they are along the river," said Haynes.
Ride-share apps are even being used to get those at risk to safety. The county says that fills in the gaps as they have limited transportation.
"We can call on this Uber and Lyft contract to get people from where they are currently camping either into our motel respite program or one of our other shelters," said Haynes.
The county is asking everyone to be prepared. Damaging winds are expected to threaten to cut power to residents county-wide.
"Resupply if you need to and are able to and make sure you have food and water for your family and a way to stay warm," said Flynn-Nevins.
Their best advice: register now online for emergency notifications specific to your address. This is the county's fastest tool to warn you firsthand if there is a safety risk.
"We send those out when there is flooding, evacuations, or some other critical message we need to get to a specific area," said Haynes.
Keeping phones charged in case of loss of power is important as well as charging external power banks.
If you still need sandbags to help protect your property from flooding, Sacramento County has six active sandbag-filling sites.
