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Storm in California: At least two dead and tens of thousands of homes without power
Two people have died in flooding in California.
© Credit: IMAGO/ZUMA Wire
According to US media, at least two people died in heavy rain and flooding in central California at the beginning of the year. On Monday, the storms moved eastward inland, and a weather warning continued to apply to around 15 million people. Tens of thousands of homes in California were still without power.
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Locked in the car
In Sacramento County, about 150 kilometers northeast of San Francisco, on Sunday, according to the newspaper „Sacramento Bee“ a dead person found in a flooded vehicle. In Santa Cruz, about 100 kilometers south of San Francisco, a 72-year-old was killed by a falling tree on Saturday, local television station KRON4 reported.
The reason for the extreme weather was a so-called atmospheric flow, a damp and narrow band of weather that can stretch over hundreds of kilometers. According to local authorities, a highway that was closed on New Year’s morning due to the floods was reopened on Monday morning (local time). According to the US weather agency NWS, San Francisco had the second most rainfall on New Year’s Eve since records began around 150 years ago.
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People in northern California are now bracing for more storms this week. Heavy rain had caused rivers to burst their banks. According to meteorologists, new rainfall is expected in the region on Tuesday night. A severe storm system should continue to cause heavy rainfall in the Sacramento Valley and snow in the mountains on Wednesday and Thursday.
Dike system partially destroyed
During the current floods, 1,000 inmates from a prison had to be brought to safety and parts of a dyke system, which is used to protect primarily agricultural land, were washed away. The emergency services hoped to have the repair of the dam system completed by the next storm. Otherwise, the progress made so far should be secured as best as possible with plastic and sandbags.
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For the San Francisco Bay area, the National Weather Service warned of widespread flooding and power outages from Wednesday’s storm. It is a “truly brutal” storm system that must be taken seriously.
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RND/dpa/AP