Five rescued from swollen creek as storms pummel California

Fire crews rescued residents from a San Jose neighbourhood inundated by water from an overflowing creek Tuesday after earlier saving five people who were stranded by flooding at a homeless encampment along a creek in the city.

The rescues came after a series of heavy storms drenched already soggy Northern California.

The rescued residents had to be taken to dry land and rinsed off to prevent them from being sickened by floodwaters that had travelled through garbage, debris and over sewer lines, San Jose Fire Capt. Mitch Matlow said. Helicopter footage showed people being escorted from the neighbourhood on boats passing by submerged vehicles throughout the neighbourhood.

Firefighters were going door-to-door to alert residents because the city does not have sirens or another emergency warning system, San Jose spokesman David Vossbrink said.

“Anybody who is near the creek should be getting ready to leave,” he said.

In the San Joaquin Valley in California’s agricultural heartland, farmers used their tractors and other heavy equipment to help shore up an endangered levee along the San Joaquin River.

The rains were the latest produced by a series of storms generated by “atmospheric rivers” that dump massive quantities of Pacific Ocean water on California after carrying it through the air from as far away as Hawaii.

The rains have saturated the once drought stricken region but have created chaos for residents hit hard by the storms.

The latest downpours swelled waterways to flood levels and left about half the state under flood, wind and snow advisories.

The storm system began to weaken Tuesday after dumping more than a halfinch of rain in the San Joaquin Valley, over an inch in San Francisco, and more than five inches in the mountains above Big Sur over the previous 24 hours, the National Weather Service reported.

Dry weather was expected to return to the region today.

In the San Joaquin Valley, a flash flood warning remained in effect following a levee break along the San Joaquin River that prompted an evacuation order for about 500 people.