WILTON, Calif. — Flooding preparations are underway again as storms arrive in Northern California.
One area familiar with floods is Wilton, just south of Sacramento County near Elk Grove.
Related: Wilton firefighters, community share their first-hand accounts from the major New Year's Eve storm
People in charge of protecting the area are working around the clock to prepare in hopes what happened in Wilton on New Year's Eve doesn't happen again.
People died in floodwaters around Highway 99 during the New Year's Eve storms, the area's levees were breached and people were ordered to leave their homes.
This sparked the town's volunteer fire department to save more than a dozen people from their cars.
Meanwhile, Reclamation District 800 is working as much as possible to repair the levees since the last storm.
"To The Point" host Alex Bell spoke with Leland Schneider, a board trustee with Reclamation District 800, to discuss the work that's been done and how they are gearing up for the storms ahead.
"We're getting some help from DWR just on a flood-fighting basis now," said Schneider. "(We're) more engaged with the Army Corps of Engineers. They want to come and meet with us for any future stuff that's gonna go on."
Schneider says he's confident the emergency temporary repairs RD800 has done so far will hold. He also adds the work they are doing at Lee School Crossing is vital.
"This is where the river overtopped January 1," he said. "This is where the water got onto Dillard Road and on Green Road downstream. This right here will shut down Dillard Road if we didn't have a levee here and Green Road and all the houses on Green Road in between the storms."
Schneider says they are trying to get to at least a 12-foot level of protection at Michigan Bar because they don't want to see Dillard or Green Road shut down.
"My biggest concern is the unpredictability of the storm," said Schneider. "The second (concern) is that people in the area aren't aware of what's going to happen down here. When the water gets to 13.8 at Michigan Bar, it goes places down here that it probably shouldn't go and we have saturated levees from over 20 inches of rain. We don't know what's going to happen down here."
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