Heavy snowfall continues to jolt California
LOS ANGELES — Emergency crews in California scrambled Wednesday to shuttle food and medicine to mountain communities stranded by back-to-back winter storms that have dumped so much snow some residents can barely see out their windows.
In San Bernardino County east of Los Angeles, around-theclock plowing is underway but it could take more than a week to reach some areas, said Dawn Rowe, chair of the county’s board of supervisors. Residents are dealing with as much as 7 feet of snow, and sheriffs’ authorities have conducted 17 rescue operations to help off-roaders and skiers. Emergency crews are trying to reach residents who need assistance.
In Crestline, the entire roof of Goodwin and Sons Market collapsed Wednesday even as safety inspectors were onsite checking up on reported damage. Officials raced to salvage food residents sorely need from its shelves. Rowe said no one was injured. “We know that roofs are starting to collapse,” she said. “There are other businesses that will likely be affected by the weight of the snow.”
The county has set up a hotline for residents dealing with issues like frozen pipes, roof problems, and food shortages.
The San Bernardino Mountains are a major tourism and recreation destination but also home to a large year-round population in small cities and communities around lakes and scattered along winding roads. About 80,000 people live either part- or full-time in the communities affected, said David Wert, a county spokesman.
Anthony Cimino, a 51-year-old retiree, said he’s been snowed in for about a week in the mountain community of Running Springs. He finally managed to clear his decks, but not for long.
“I woke up this morning and there was another two-and-ahalf feet on them,” he said. “It was kind of like Groundhog Day.”
Residents of these towns are grappling with so much snow they’re running out of space to put it; clearing one area adds heaps to another. Grocery shelves had run bare of some items, like bread, and were running low on eggs and milk Tuesday. Cars remained buried under snow and roads closed.
At David and Kelli Góra’s home in Big Bear Lake, the snow on the roof is now touching the snow on the ground. They shoveled a small area to let their dogs go outside, but are mostly hunkered down.
“We’ve been through some big storms … but this is just unreal,” David Góra said. “I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere.”
While the West Coast grappled with wintry weather, forecasters warned a new, powerful weather system will affect most of the lower 48 states this week. Six to 12 inches of snow could eventually fall in upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire, meteorologist David Roth said.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, record high temperatures were expected Wednesday along the Gulf Coast and into the Ohio Valley while the southern Plains to the mid-South braced for possible tornadoes Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
The heavy snow was expected to end in California on Wednesday afternoon after an additional 1 to 2 feet falls, according to the weather service. In Arizona, snow began falling Wednesday morning as the storm moved eastward and was poised to dump as much as 2 feet of snow in northern Arizona by Thursday morning.
The Sierra snowpack provides about a third of California’s water supply. Tuesday’s water content of the snowpack — in a state grappling with years of drought — was 186 percent of normal to date, according to the state Department of Water Resources’ online data.
The next, larger weather system was expected to spread across much of the country Thursday, and areas such as the lower Mississippi Valley and Tennessee Valley could see heavy rain, thunderstorms and some flash flooding. The high temperatures could top 100 degrees across far south Texas, and windy, dry conditions would make for a critical risk of wildfire in parts of the Southwest for the next few days, according to the weather service.