LOS ANGELES (AP) – California’s 11th atmospheric river left the storm-soaked state with a bang on Wednesday, bringing flooded roadways, landslides and toppled trees to the southern part of the state as well as drought-busting rainfall that meant the end of water restrictions for nearly seven million people.
Even as residents struggled to clean up before the next round of winter arrives in the coming days – with some 27,000 people still under evacuation orders statewide on Wednesday – the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s decision brought relief amid the state’s historic drought.
The district supplies water for 19 million people in six counties. The board imposed the restrictions, which included limiting outdoor watering to one day a week, in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties last year during a severe shortage of state
water supplies.
But weather woes remained on Wednesday, as an additional 61,000 people remained under evacuation warnings and emergency shelters housed more than 650 people, according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
Meanwhile in Arizona, the city of Sedona urged people in a dozen areas to immediately evacuate on Wednesday evening because of predicted flooding of Oak Creek.
The churning waters had submerged a roadway near a mobile home park and forecasters said it could rise to 15 feet, a foot above flood stage.
In Southern California, flooding also closed several miles of the Pacific Coast Highway through Huntington Beach, south of Los Angeles on the Orange County coast, and potholes disabled more than 30 cars on one freeway.
More than 144,000 utility customers statewide remained without power on Wednesday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us.
Some Southern California beaches were closed as heavy rain overwhelmed sewage systems and sent thousands of gallons of raw sewage to the sea.
In Los Angeles, a man who clung to a concrete wall of the rushing, rain-swollen Los Angeles River was saved from being swept away when a Fire Department rescuer, dangling from a helicopter, reached him and he was hauled up to safety.
Governor Gavin Newsom surveyed flood damage in an agricultural region on the central coast, noting that California could potentially see a 12th atmospheric river next week.
Officials have not yet determined the extent of the winter storms’ damage, both structurally and financially.
“Look back – last few years in this state, it’s been fire to ice with no warm bath in between,” the Democrat said, describing “weather whiplash” in a state that has quickly gone from extreme drought and wildfires to overwhelming snow and rain.
“If anyone has any doubt about Mother Nature and her fury, if anyone has any doubt about what this is all about in terms of what’s happening to the climate and the changes that we are experiencing, come to California,” the governor said.
