Sacramento – Crews in Northern California were still scrambling early Monday to clean up the disastrous effects of record rainfall before another weather system arrived from the Pacific this week. A New Year’s storm brought deadly flooding, strong winds and landslides and a deep, heavy snowpack in some areas, closing highways and stranding drivers.
The immediate concern Monday morning around Sacramento was breaching levees, many of which threatened to flood more roads.
Many Sacramento County residents were already under evacuation orders after historic rains breached levees, with officials warning that the situation remained “incredibly dangerous.”
Massive storms batter California with heavy rain, wind and power outages 02:26
The fear is that swollen rivers could continue to rise this week after they overflow onto nearby roads. First responders rescued at least a dozen people stuck in vehicles over the weekend, with at least one person killed near the town of Wilton after trying to drive through high water.
Neighborhoods in Northern California have been submerged and landslides have blocked roads. Powerful wind gusts of up to 60 miles per hour knocked down trees on power lines, leaving tens of thousands of people in the dark.
A landslide is seen on Highway 92 West in San Mateo County as heavy rains hit California’s west coast on December 31, 2022. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty
Further south in the San Francisco Bay Area, the iconic Fisherman’s Wharf experienced its wettest day in nearly 30 years, and the Oakland Zoo was scheduled to close for at least two weeks after a large sinkhole collapsed at its entrance.
The atmospheric river brought more than eight feet of snow to the Sierra Nevada mountains, closing roads and even closing many ski resorts.
As the system heads east through the Rockies, avalanche warnings were already in effect after a skier was killed near Breckenridge, Colo., and another avalanche was caught on camera from downtown Telluride during the weekend.
First weather alert Monday for freezing rain and snow 03:37
However, there was one glimmer of hope that all the extreme weather brought to California: The storm system may have provided a desperately needed replenishment of drought-stricken mountain snowpack and reservoirs.
But forecasters said it was too early to determine whether this week’s storms will have any positive and lasting impact.
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Jonathan Vigliotti
Jonathan Vigliotti is a CBS News correspondent based in Los Angeles. He previously served as foreign correspondent for the network’s London bureau.
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