The latest in a relentless string of storms slammed California on Monday, swamping roads, battering coastlines with high surf, turning rivers into gushing flood zones and forcing the evacuation of thousands in towns with histories of deadly mudslides.
California Storms A truck drives through floodwaters in Merced, Calif., as storms continue battering the state on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
California Storms Kim Ochoa leaves her Merced, Calif., home, which is surrounded by floodwaters, as storms continue battering the state on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
California Storms Extensive damage to homes and businesses on Capitol Avenue in Sacramento, Calif., is seen Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023, following a storm Saturday night that downed trees and power lines throughout the region. (Xavier Mascareñas/The Sacramento Bee via AP)
Xavier Mascareñas/The Sacramento Bee via AP
California Storms California Gov. Gavin Newsom listens during a news conference about storm damage, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023, in Capitola, Calif.,. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
AP Photo/Nic Coury
Severe Weather California Flooding from huge amounts of rain are seen in a neighborhood off of Holohan Road near Watsonville, Calif. on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023.(Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Severe Weather California Colleen Kumada-McGowan stands in flood waters from huge amounts of rain in front of her home in a neighborhood off of Holohan Road near Watsonville, Calif. on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023.(Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Severe Weather California Caltrans crews work to clear a mudslide on Highway 17 that resulted from heavy rain from an atmospheric river storm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, south of Glenwood Drive in Scott's Valley, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Severe Weather California Caltrans crews work to clear a mudslide on Highway 17 that resulted from heavy rain from an atmospheric river storm in the Santa Cruz Mountains 1/4-mile south of Glenwood Drive in Scott's Valley, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Severe Weather California Caltrans crews work to clear a mudslide on Highway 17 that resulted from heavy rain from an atmospheric river storm in the Santa Cruz Mountains, south of Glenwood Drive in Scott's Valley, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Severe Weather California Jeremy String walks in flood waters from huge amounts of rain in his neighborhood off of Holohan Road near Watsonville, Calif. on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023.(Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
Severe Weather California Flooding from huge amounts of rain are seen in a neighborhood off of Holohan Road near Watsonville, Calif. on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023.(Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Brontë Wittpenn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP
California Storms Howard Burman looks at mud that washed through his garage after the San Lorenzo River overflowed in the Felton Grove neighborhood of Felton, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
AP Photo/Nic Coury
California Storms Brandon Ammon sweeps mud that washed through his garage after the San Lorenzo River overflowed in the Felton Grove neighborhood of Felton, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
AP Photo/Nic Coury
APTOPIX California Storms Muddy streets in the Felton Grove neighborhood of Felton, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
AP Photo/Nic Coury
California Storms Exposed roofing tops a South San Francisco, Calif., apartment building as storms continue battering the state on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. According to South San Francisco Deputy Fire Chief Matt Samson, squall-like conditions overnight including wind gusts around 70 mph blew roofing material off the building causing water intrusion to two of the apartments. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
APTOPIX California Storms Matt O'Brien shovels mud from a friend's driveway after the San Lorenzo River overflowed in the Felton Grove neighborhood of Felton, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
AP Photo/Nic Coury
California Storms Richard Shaffer surveys his fallen fence in the Felton Grove neighborhood after the San Lorenzo River overflowed in Felton, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Nic Coury)
AP Photo/Nic Coury
APTOPIX California Storms Following days of rain, floodwaters surround homes and vehicles in the Planada community of Merced County, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
California Storms Firefighters clear away a fallen tree in Montecito, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains Tuesday as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
California Storms People shovel mud from the front of a home near Highway 101 in Montecito, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains Tuesday as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
California Storms In an aerial view, a flooded area by the overflowing San Ysidro creek on Jameson Lane is seen near the closed Highway 101 in Montecito, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains Tuesday as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
APTOPIX California Storms Pauline Torres carries belongings from her flooded Merced, Calif., home on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
California Storms Jesus Torres carries belongings from his flooded Merced, Calif., home on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
APTOPIX California Storms Floodwaters course through a neighborhood in Merced, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. Following days of rain, Bear Creek overflowed its banks leaving dozens of homes and vehicles surrounded by floodwaters. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
APTOPIX California Storms Brenda Ortega, 15, salvages items from her flooded Merced, Calif., home on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. Following days of rain, Bear Creek overflowed its banks leaving dozens of homes and vehicles surrounded by floodwaters. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
California Storms A vehicle is trapped by mud and debris at Jameson Lane near Highway 101 in Montecito, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains Tuesday as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
APTOPIX California Storms Following days of rain, floodwaters surround homes and vehicles in the Planada community of Merced County, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
APTOPIX California Storms In an aerial view, A fire truck, left, passes by as a vehicle is trapped by mud and debris at Jameson Lane near Highway 101 in Montecito, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains Tuesday as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
California Storms In an aerial view, a flooded area by the overflowing San Ysidro creek on Jameson Lane is seen near the closed Highway 101 in Montecito, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains Tuesday as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
California Storms A work crew cleans up an area of Highway 101 that flooded in Montecito, Calif., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains Tuesday as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)
AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu
Calfiornia Storms This undated photo provided by the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office shows a photo of 5-year-old Kyle Doan who the authorities are searching for. The search resumed Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023, for the 5-year-old boy who was swept away by floodwaters a day earlier on the state's central coast. Doan, who has dirty blonde hair, was wearing a black puffer jacket and blue jeans when the truck he was in with his mother became stranded in rising waters near Paso Robles, according to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office. (San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office via AP)
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office via AP
California Storms Debris from a mudslide blocks a street in the Laurel Canyon section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. The latest in a relentless string of California storms is swamping roads, battering coastlines with high surf, turning rivers into gushing flood zones and forcing the evacuation of thousands in towns with histories of deadly mudslides. (AP Photo/Michael R. Blood)
AP Photo/Michael R. Blood
APTOPIX California Storms Cars remain in a large sinkhole along Iverson Road in Chatsworth, Calif., on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (David Crane/The Orange County Register via AP)
David Crane/The Orange County Register via AP
California Storms A resident attempts to help a vehicle stuck on Fredonia Drive in Studio City, Calif., where a mudslide is blocking the road during a rain storm on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides.(Sarah Reingewirtz /The Orange County Register via AP)
Sarah Reingewirtz /The Orange County Register via AP
California Storms A resident keeps watch on Fredonia Drive in Studio City, Calif., where a mudslide is blocking the road during a rain on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides.(Sarah Reingewirtz /The Orange County Register via AP)
Sarah Reingewirtz /The Orange County Register via AP
California Storms A resident keeps watch on Fredonia Drive in Studio City, Calif., where a mudslide is blocking the road during a rain storm on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. California saw little relief from drenching rains as the latest in a relentless string of storms swamped roads, turned rivers into gushing flood zones and forced thousands of people to flee from towns with histories of deadly mudslides.(Sarah Reingewirtz /The Orange County Register via AP)
Sarah Reingewirtz /The Orange County Register via AP
APTOPIX California Storms In this image taken with a drone, a vehicle is stuck in a sinkhole in the Chatsworth section of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. Sinkholes swallowed cars and raging torrents swamped towns and swept away a small boy Tuesday as California was wracked by more wild winter while the next system in a powerful string of storms loomed on the horizon. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
California Storms Kim Ochoa leaves her Merced, Calif., home, which is surrounded by floodwaters, as storms continue to batter the state on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
California Storms Nick Enero wades through floodwaters while helping his brother salvage items from his Merced, Calif., home as storms continue battering the state on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
AP Photo/Noah Berger
California Storms Floodwaters surround homes on Thornton Rd. in Merced, Calif., as storms continue battering the state on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sinkholes swallowed cars and floodwaters swamped towns and swept away a small boy as California was wracked by more wild winter while the next in a powerful string of storms loomed on the horizon Tuesday.
Millions of residents faced flood warnings, nearly 50,000 people were under evacuation orders, and more than 110,000 homes and businesses were without power because of heavy rains, lightning, hail and landslides.
At least 17 people have died from storms that began late last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a visit to the scenic town of Capitola on the Santa Cruz coast that was hard hit by high surf and flooding creek waters last week. The deaths included a pickup truck driver and motorcyclist killed Tuesday morning when a eucalyptus tree fell on them on Highway 99 in the San Joaquin Valley near Visalia, the California Highway Patrol said.
“We’ve had less people die in the last two years of major wildfires in California than have died since New Year’s Day related to this weather,” Newsom said. “These conditions are serious and they’re deadly.”
The storm that began Monday dumped more than a foot and a half (45 centimeters) of rain in Southern California mountains and buried Sierra Nevada ski resorts in more than 5 feet (1.5 meters) of snow.
Rockfalls and landslides shut down roads, and gushing runoff turned sections of freeways into waterways. Swollen rivers swamped homes and residents of small communities inundated with water and mud were stranded.
“We’re all stuck out here,” said Brian Briggs, after the deluge unleashed mudslides in remote Matilija Canyon that buried one house completely and cut off the only road to nearby Ojai.
Briggs described a scary night where the canyon creek began to flood people’s yards and the surrounding hills — stripped of vegetation in the 2017 Thomas Fire — began to tumble down in the dark.
Mudflows dragged sheds, gazebos and outhouses into the creek, he said. After helping neighbors get to higher ground, he returned home to find his fence destroyed by waist-deep mud.
A helicopter dropped 10 sheriff’s deputies Tuesday to help the residents of dozens of homes in the canyon and Briggs said he was hoping to be airlifted out.
Raging waters crested the banks of Bear Creek and flooded parts of the city of Merced and neighboring Planada, a small agricultural community along a highway leading to Yosemite National Park.
Neighborhoods were under water with cars submerged up to their roofs. Residents ordered to evacuate carried whatever they could salvage on their backs as they left in the rain.
A break in the weather Tuesday on the central coast allowed searchers near San Miguel to look for Kyle Doan, the child who vanished after he and his mother were stranded in a truck in rising waters. His mother was rescued, but Kyle was swept away, and a seven-hour search Monday turned up only one of his Nikes.
“It’s still very dangerous out there,” said San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s spokesperson Tony Cipolla. “The creeks are very fast flowing.”
The wet and blustery weather left California’s large homeless population in a precarious situation. At least two homeless people in Sacramento County died, and more than a dozen people were rescued from a homeless encampment on the Ventura River.
Theo Harris, who has been living on the streets of San Francisco since getting out of jail in 2016, fortified his shelter with tarps and zip ties and took in his girlfriend after her tent flooded.
“The wind has been treacherous, but you just got to bundle up and make sure you stay dry,” Harris said. “Rain is part of life. It’s going to be sunny. It’s going to rain. I just got to strap my boots up and not give up.”
The storms have created what Newsom called a “weather whiplash,” swinging from an epic drought to the other extreme and arriving with a fury and frequency likely to create problems well into next week.
While most of the state remains in extreme or severe drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, the state said the water content in the snowpack is more than double the average.
“It’s fair to say that what we’re seeing right now in California will certainly help to relieve some of the localized aspects of drought, but will not resolve the long-term drought challenges,” said Rick Spinrad, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The latest atmospheric river — a long plume of moisture stretching out into the Pacific that can drop staggering amounts of rain and snow — began easing in some areas. But more rain was forecast to arrive Wednesday in Northern California, and then a longer storm system was predicted to last from Friday until Jan. 17.
The weather service issued a flood watch through Tuesday for the entire San Francisco Bay Area, along with the Sacramento Valley and Monterey Bay. Areas hit by wildfires in recent years faced the possibility of mud and debris sliding down bare hillsides.
Gusts as high as 88 miles per hour (141 kilometers per hour) were recorded in the mountains north of Los Angeles, and rainfall was expected to reach up to half an inch (1.27 centimeters) per hour. Tornadoes that had been forecast never materialized.
In South San Francisco, high winds ripped part of the roof off a large apartment building.
The squalls and flooding have forced school cancellations in some communities and intermittently shut down sections of major roadways that have flooded or been blocked by trees, rocks and landslides.
Amtrak suspended its Pacific Surfliner trains between Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo because of weather, and waters flooded the main concourse at Los Angeles’ historic Union Station.
A sinkhole swallowed two cars on a Los Angeles street, trapping two motorists who had to be rescued by a team of firefighters. P hotos Tuesday showed a chasm nearly the width of a street and with huge chunks of pavement and the little car deep inside it.
Another sinkhole damaged 15 homes in the rural Santa Barbara County community of Orcutt.
In the wealthy seaside community of Montecito, 80 miles (128 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles, evacuation orders were lifted Tuesday for about 10,000 people, including Prince Harry, Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities. The community had been told to evacuate on the fifth anniversary of a mudslide that killed 23 people and destroyed more than 100 homes.
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Associated Press journalists John Antczak and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles and Janie Har and Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco, Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento, Noah Berger in Merced and Seth Borenstein in Denver contributed to this report.
