Two of those tips have been the most common, a state official said. People from trees and vehicles drowning in water.
Fort Bragg, California. Seventeen people have died in a series of flash floods in California over the past two weeks. A staggering death toll in a state used to wildfires, earthquakes and drought. A state official said Tuesday.
Deaths were reported across the state from San Bernardino. County in the south to Mendocino County in the north. According to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the agency, said two types of deaths were the most common.
He said, “We have not had floods for a long time. “People have a lot of experience with fire. We’re coming out of years of drought. The public has to learn a new skill.”
The slowly rising water, he said, may seem more innocuous. Than the kind of large and fast-moving wildfires the state has seen in recent years. While such fires may have a county or two in their crosshairs, recent storms have walloped. Two-thirds of the state with relentless rain and strong winds, he said.
The last time California had this much rain at once was probably in the 1990s, he said.
Govt. Gavin Newsom points to a link between climate change. And the state’s dramatic weather changes. “Dry is getting much drier in the last three years, and wet is getting much wetter. This weather whiplash – is this the new reality?” He told reporters in hard-hit Santa Cruz County on Tuesday.
The dramatic changes recall the last rainfall event with a significant death toll. In 2018, nearly two dozen people died in landslides. In the affluent Santa Barbara enclave of Montecito. The area has been burned by wildfires and is prone to flooding.
Five years to the day, Montecito still looks vulnerable. On Monday, fearing high rainfall rates, authorities evacuated. The entire community of 10,000 people. Although a sheriff’s office spokesman warned residents to. Expect slick roads and debris as they returned home.
Another 34,000 people are under evacuation orders across the state, Newsom said Tuesday.
Newsom said the most recent deaths linked to the storm were those killed in car crashes. And lightning strikes in the Tulare County area.
Newsom asked to pray for a 5-year-old boy in San Luis Obispo County who disappeared.
The sheriff’s office resumed the search Tuesday morning after “extreme.” weather hampered efforts Monday, Cipolla said.
Meanwhile, the end of the rain is still more than a week away, Newsom said. Forecasters expect at least three more. atmospheric rivers to drench the state in the next eight days.
He said. It “doesn’t tell the whole story. And now just a more modest amount of rain could have an equal or greater impact in terms of soil conditions.
