Californians rescued from car trapped in flood waters as state sees ‘historic’ rainfall totals
>
Video released Sunday shows the shocking moment the Californians were rescued from a flooded street where their car had gotten stuck in heavy water.
The clip, shared by the Orange County Fire Authority, showed an adult sitting in a salvage car and four adults inside a salvage car as they waited on an off-ramp onto the 55 Freeway.
In all, five people were rescued and transported from the scene in Tustin.
The savings comes as California continued to experience severe weather, including some of the heaviest rainfall totals the Golden State has seen in more than 100 years.
Rescuers pulled people out of stranded cars Saturday night.
In video of the rescue from Saturday, crews from the City of Tustin Fire Department and the Orange County Fire Authority can be seen rowing a rescue boat out to the stranded vehicles.
The rescue group loads the passengers onto the boat as the rain falls.
OCFA’s FF Technical Rescue Truck rowed a rescue boat to safety after 2 had left on their own. All 5 were evaluated by FFPM and were uninjured,” the Orange County Fire Authority said in a tweet.
Four of the individuals were transported to their nearby home in an ambulance.
Orange County officials thanked the California Highway Patrol and the California Department of Transportation for their help in assisting.
While the rain in SoCal has been welcome after months of drought-like conditions, the weather has also caused significant problems across the state, specifically Northern California.
One person was saved from the top of a car, while four others were pulled from inside a submerged vehicle.
The rescue group took the individuals to safety in a rescue boat.
The cars became stuck on an off-ramp onto Highway 55 in Orange County, California.
Downtown San Francisco recorded its second-wettest single day on record Saturday after measuring 5.46 inches of rain.
“This makes it the second rainiest day in the more than 170 years of records at that site, only 0.08′ less than the first place (11/5/1994) with 5.54,” said the National Weather Service. .
Rainfall from Friday through Saturday accounted for nearly 47 percent of San Francisco’s total rainfall for all of December.
The 101 Freeway, which connects San Francisco to the peninsula, was closed by flooding for much of Saturday.
Oakland reported its wettest day on record Sunday with 4.75 inches of rain in a 24-hour period.
The previous record had been set in January 1982, according to the National Weather Service.
Amazing video from Sacramento County on Sunday morning showed drivers trying to brave heavy water on roads and highways.
One clip shows a rescuer standing in a completely submerged vehicle, helicopters flying overhead to search for cars and stranded individuals.
The rain contributed to the overflow of rivers, including the Cosumnes and Mokelumne, in the Sacramento area.
On Saturday night, officials said the Cosumnes River alone was expected to reach 15.5 feet.
As of Sunday morning, Highway 99 was closed due to continued flooding and overflowing rivers.
‘SR-99 north and south will be closed with no estimated opening time due to flooding from the Cosumnes River. Avoid traveling anywhere near the surrounding areas of Wilton, Herald and the outer Galt region,” the National Weather Service said.
Local officials declared a state of emergency and urged residents to consider evacuation.
Evacuations were also ordered for multiple areas of Northern California, including El Dorado County and Santa Cruz County.
In a community east of San Francisco, local police came to the rescue of more than a dozen elderly people in need of assistance.
San Ramon Police Lieutenant Tami Williams said Officials used armored vehicles to help 13 “seniors who needed help with evacuations due to flooding.”
Authorities have urged drivers to turn around if they encounter floodwaters.
Sacramento Firefighters Over the Weekend teenagers rescued from tree branches after getting trapped while driving through floodwaters.
the storm too knocked out powerThere were more than 179,000 homes in California as of Sunday morning, according to poweroutage.us.
The situation is far from over, too.
“We’re in for a prolonged wet pattern where these saturated soils won’t have time to really dry out,” the National Weather Service said.
“The only break we’ll get from the rain will be on January 1, but then more rain will occur January 2-5 with a third moderate atmospheric river moving into our region around January 4-5.”
The Category 3 atmospheric river that struck California’s central coast earlier this week flooded Bay Area communities well into Sunday.
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for the Bay Area beginning Tuesday morning.
A Northern California meteorologist described the system as a “storm parade.”