The latest in a series of intense winter storms continued to lash Northern California on Tuesday, bringing thunderstorms, heavy rain, wind and hail to the waterlogged region as the death toll from the extreme weather climbs.
The back-to-back atmospheric rivers that have battered the Golden State have led to at least 17 deaths, including those of two motorists who died early Tuesday in a crash on Highway 99 in Tulare County when a tree that had been struck by lightning fell onto the road, authorities said.
“These conditions are serious and they’re deadly,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a news conference in Capitola on Tuesday, adding that the number of deaths “tragically is likely to grow.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, 31 of California’s 58 counties had been declared disasters, he added. More than 30,000 people across the state have been evacuated from their homes.
President Biden called Newsom from Mexico City and left a voicemail to offer support after the devastating floods, a White House official said Tuesday. Two days earlier, Biden approved an emergency declaration for California that authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts and provide resources.
About 155,000 Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers were without power after efforts to restore service overnight were stymied by wind gusts exceeding 70 mph in some areas and more than 100 lightning strikes, according to the utility.
Though it’s too early to estimate, the cost to repair the damage from these storms could exceed $1 billion, said Adam Smith, an applied climatologist and disaster expert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The U.S. had 18 weather and climate disasters last year whose costs reached $1 billion, tying 2017 and 2011 for the third-highest number of such incidents, according to a NOAA report. California’s storms would be the first billion-dollar disaster of 2023.
Strolling along the Esplanade in downtown Capitola on Tuesday afternoon, Newsom ducked into three restaurants that had been pummeled last week by the storm surge, with its 20-foot waves that carried trees and broken lumber from the city’s wrecked wharf.
Lamenting the unrelenting rain, the governor said, “We are soaked. This place is soaked.” Any new precipitation, even if mild, could have “huge implications on the ground,” he said.
Newsom then spoke about the “weather whiplash” Californians have faced in the last several years between extreme drought, heat waves, wildfires and rain and flooding
“The hots are getting hotter … the dries are getting a lot drier,” he said. “And the wets are getting a lot wetter.”
Patrick Lynn, owner of the Bay Bar and Grill near Capitola Beach, figured Thursday’s storm would be run-of-the-mill and put some sandbags out front. Then he got a call from a nearby business owner that his bar was being destroyed.
The waves were so strong that they lifted up the floor of the bar and cracked it down the middle, said Lynn, 53. His back windows were also blown out.
“I had seawater splash on top of my television that’s about 8 feet high,” he said. “It was almost hitting my ceiling and coming through the drapes and front of the bar; it just blew everything apart. It was unbelievable.”
This week’s storms have continued to break apart portions of the bar.
“That bar was my life,” said Lynn, who has yet to find out whether he will receive state and federal assistance or an insurance payout. “It helped save me because I didn’t know what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”
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