A man helps Naomi Rodriguez (R) walk through flood waters in Pajaro, California, on Saturday, March 11, 2023. Residents were forced to evacuate in the middle of the night after an atmospheric river surge broke the Pajaro Levee, sending floodwaters into the community. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP)
Another powerful storm pummeled California overnight into Saturday, forcing thousands to evacuate, causing at least two deaths, and breaching a levee in coastal Monterey County. “We were hoping to avoid and prevent this situation, but the worst‑case scenario has arrived with the Pajaro River overtopping and the levee breaching at about midnight,” Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo said on Twitter Saturday.
State emergency services director Nancy Ward announced on Friday that the storm had already claimed at least two lives. Images posted by the state’s National Guard on Twitter showed guardsmen rescuing residents trapped in their cars by high water. At least one road was washed away in Santa Cruz County, just north of Monterey, and residents in several northern towns have been ordered to evacuate.
An unusually intense and seemingly endless series of storms has battered California for weeks. The latest storm was expected to dump as much as nine inches (23 cm) of rain on already saturated ground. Part of a powerful atmospheric river known as a “Pineapple Express”—named for the warm, subtropical moisture it brings from Hawaii—this storm will accelerate the melting of the enormous snowpack that has built up in higher elevations. The resulting runoff threatens to aggravate already serious flooding.
U.S. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration on Friday, clearing the way to expedite federal aid to the western state. Governor Gavin Newsom said California is “deploying every tool we have to protect communities from the relentless and deadly storms battering our state.” Storms in January were blamed for the loss of 20 lives.
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