CALIFORNIA, USA — To help keep people safe with more rain and potential flooding on the way, California water experts are stepping up their efforts.
Tuesday, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) said its Flood Operations Center is fully activated.
This means an elevated level of coordinated efforts with local agencies to keep people safe as more rain arrives.
The center is the heart of flood response for the state. Ever since the recent storms series started last week, its team has been watching a flood system of 1,600 miles of levees and other features. It's a system experts believe will stand strong against this week's storm.
"With that flood system that's designed to take pressure off the mainstem rivers of the Sac-Joaquin in Sacramento, there is a fair amount of capacity in the system, certainly to handle the anticipated forecasted flows for this week," said Gary Lippner, deputy director of Flood Management and Dam Safety for DWR.
A big part of what the center does to keep people safe during high water is facilitate discussion between reservoir operators. The center makes sure all the appropriate agencies are talking together and not making decisions alone.
"Flood fight materials and equipment have been pre-positioned at 38 locations statewide and are ready for rapid deployment to local agencies on an as-needed basis. Levee inspectors have been deployed and are actively performing levee inspections across the state. Flood fight specialists have been deployed to help locals assess critical locations along levied segments of flood control systems," said Lippner.
The flooding in Wilton over the weekend left several residents stranded at home with no way out.
"We are increasing our activation stage as more wet weather has come in and more impacts are there," said Lippner. "We are activated and continue to staff up, we have flood fight specialist helping in that area there."
He said officials are working with locals, Reclamation District 800 for any needs there might be.
The last time the Flood Operations Center was activated was in 2019 for four days. In 2017, the center was active for 151 days. That was the year of the Oroville Dam crisis, where nearly 200,000 people living downstream from the dam were told to leave their homes.
WATCH ALSO:
