Storm breaches California river’s levee, thousands told to evacuate
WATSONVILLE, CALIF.
A Northern California agricultural community famous for its strawberry crop was forced to evacuate early Saturday after the Pajaro River’s levee was breached by flooding from a new atmospheric river that pummeled the state.
Across the Central Coast’s Monterey County, more than 8,500 people were under evacuation orders and warnings Saturday, including roughly 1,700 residents — many of them Latino farmworkers — from the unincorporated community of Pajaro.
Officials said the Pajaro River’s levee breach is about 100 feet wide. Crews had gone door to door Friday afternoon to urge residents to leave before the rains came but some stayed and had to be pulled from floodwaters early Saturday.
First responders and the California National Guard rescued more than 50 people overnight. One video showed a member of the Guard helping a driver out of a car trapped by water up to their waists.
“We were hoping to avoid and prevent this situation, but the worst case scenario has arrived with the Pajaro River overtopping and levee breaching at about midnight,” wrote Luis Alejo, chair of the Monterey County
Board of Supervisors, on Twitter.
Alejo called the flooding “massive,” saying the damage will take months to repair.
The Pajaro River separates the counties of Santa Cruz and Monterey in the area that flooded Saturday.
Officials had been working along the levee in the hopes of shoring it up when it was breached around midnight Friday into Saturday. Crews began working to fix the levee around daybreak Saturday as residents slept in evacuation centers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office on Saturday said it was monitoring the situation in Pajaro.
“Our thoughts are with everyone impacted and the state has mobilized to support the community,” the governor’s office wrote on Twitter.
The Pajaro Valley is a coastal agricultural area known for growing strawberries, apples, cauliflower, broccoli and artichokes. National brands like Driscoll’s Strawberries and Martinelli’s are headquartered in the region.
In 1995, the Pajaro River’s levees broke, submerging 2,500 acres of farmland and the community of Pajaro. Two peopled died and the flooding caused nearly $100 million in damage. A state law, passed last year, advanced state funds for a levee project. It was scheduled to start construction in 2024.
Across the state on Saturday, Californians contended with drenching rains and rising water levels in the atmospheric river’s aftermath. In Tulare County, the sheriff ordered residents who live near the Tule River to evacuate. The National Weather Service’s meteorologists issued flood warnings and advisories, begging motorists to stay off deluged roadways.