More rain in Northern California, dryer in the south

Storm-ravaged California set to work Wednesday to clean up and repair extensive damage as heavy rain eased in many areas, although thunderstorms brought a new atmospheric river into the northern half of the state.

A plume of moisture lurking off the coast stretched from the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii, turning it into “a veritable pineapple express,” the National Weather Service said.

Its rainfall was expected to affect only Northern California, giving the south a reprieve until wetter weather sets in by the weekend.

At least 17 people died as a result of the storm that hit the state. That figure is likely to rise, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday while visiting the picturesque town of Capitola on the Santa Cruz coast, which was hit hard by heavy surf and creek flooding last week.

Authorities said a pickup truck driver and motorcyclist died early Tuesday morning in the San Joaquin Valley when a tree fell on them and was struck by lightning.

More than half of California’s 58 counties have been declared disaster areas, the governor said.

The previous storm, which began on Monday, was one in a series that began late last month, and damage could cost more than $1 billion to fix, Adam Smith, a disaster expert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said, according to the Los Angeles Times. .

Crews worked to reopen major highways that had been closed by rockfalls, floods or mud-swept, while over 10,000 people who had been ordered to leave seaside towns on the central coast were allowed to return home.

Among them is Montecito, an affluent Santa Barbara County community home to Prince Harry and other celebrities, where a landslide killed 23 people five years ago and destroyed more than 100 homes.

However, thousands of people living near rain-swollen streams and rivers are still subject to evacuation. In the San Joaquin Valley, raging waters from Bear Creek flooded part of the city of Merced and neighboring Planada, a small agricultural community along the highway leading to Yosemite National Park.

All 4,000 inhabitants of Planada were ordered to leave the city on Tuesday morning. Quarters were under water, cars were flooded to the roof. Residents who were ordered to evacuate carried whatever they could save on their backs as they left in the rain.

Other evacuations were ordered due to dam failures in parts of Monterey County.

Despite the rain, most of the state remained in extreme or severe drought, according to the US Drought Monitor.

Storms can help locally, “but won’t solve long-term drought problems,” said Rick Spinrad, administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Storm damage included washed out roads and coastal businesses inundated by 20-foot (6 m) surf that hit Santa Cruz County.

Unprecedented amounts of rain fell in many areas, combined with violent winds and even hail and lightning, which downed trees and damaged power lines.

More than 75,000 homes and businesses across the state were without power as of late Tuesday evening, according to the Poweroutage.us website.

Landslides damaged several homes in high-priced hillside areas of Los Angeles, and further down the coast, a sinkhole damaged 15 homes in rural Santa Barbara County’s Orcutta community.

Kevin Costner, who won the award for Best Actor in a Television Drama Series Yellowstone, was unable to attend the Golden Globe Awards on Tuesday in Los Angeles due to the weather. Host Regina Hall revealed she took shelter in place in Santa Barbara due to flooding.

In San Francisco, a tree fell on a commuter bus on Tuesday without causing injury, while lightning struck the city’s iconic Transamerica Pyramid building without damage. Strong winds also tore off part of the roof of a large apartment building.

Some people were trapped in small settlements flooded with water and mud.

“We’re all stuck here,” said Brian Briggs, describing a terrible night when flooding caused landslides in the remote Matilia Canyon that buried one house and cut off the only road to nearby Ojai. The canyon creek began to flood the yards, and the surrounding hills, which had been stripped of vegetation during the 2017 Thomas Fire, began to crumble in the darkness.

According to Briggs, mudflows dragged sheds, gazebos and outbuildings into the creek. Helping his neighbors up the hill, he returned home to find that his fence had been torn down to the waist in mud.

On Tuesday, a helicopter dropped 10 deputies to help residents of dozens of homes in the canyon.

Wet and windy weather has put a large number of homeless people in California in a difficult situation. At least two homeless people in Sacramento County have died and more than a dozen people have been rescued from a homeless camp on the Ventura River.

Theo Harris, who has lived on the streets of San Francisco since 2016, reinforced his shelter with tarps and zip ties on Tuesday and adopted his girlfriend after her tent flooded.

“The wind has been treacherous, but you just have to pull yourself together and make sure you stay dry,” Harris said. “Rain is part of life. It will be sunny. It will be raining. I just need to zip up my shoes and not give up.”

Associated Press journalists John Antchak and Stephanie Dazio in Los Angeles and Janie Hahr and Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco, Kathleen Ronaine in Sacramento, Noah Berger in Merced, and Seth Borenstein in Denver contributed to this report.

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