SANTA CRUZ, Calif. - Laurie Morse dumped bagged wet sand in the pouring rain Wednesday, preparing to pile it across her garage in a last-ditch effort to keep a creek from rising on California's central coast, as the storm-ravaged state braced for another round of torrential rains and damaging winds.
Morse's roof was leaking and, along with her neighbors near Santa Cruz, she has spent every day of 2023 trying to figure out how to keep her home dry after a relentless onslaught of violent weather caused widespread damage over the past two weeks. Cars were submerged, trees uprooted and the roofs of houses blown off.
While the rain eased in many areas, the storms brought another atmospheric river toward the northern half of the state, and forecasters said the latest system would be followed by more storms this weekend and next week. From the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles, Californians had little time to rest between assessing the damage from the latest storm and preparing for the next.
Earlier this week, Morse and his fellow residents of tiny Rio Del Mar were ordered to evacuate when hillsides collapsed and logs and stumps tumbled down swollen Aptos Creek from the Santa Cruz Mountains to Monterey Bay.
Now they were rushing to clean up while stacking sandbags and hoping for the best as the rain grew heavier.
โIt's one step forward and two steps back right now,โ said Morse, 59, a disabled Army veteran. โThere is already so much damage.โ
The plume of moisture that lurked off the North Shore stretched across the Pacific to Hawaii, turning the atmospheric river into "a veritable Pineapple Express," the National Weather Service said.
Michael Anderson, a climatologist with the Department of Water Resources, said California has been hit by seven storms since late December, with two more slightly weaker ones expected before the state gets a reprieve late next week.
"The challenge is that it's storms eight and nine in the sequence, and the cumulative effect is likely to cause larger impacts than the storms themselves could," he said.
At least 18 people have died in the storms that hit the state. That number is likely to rise, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday during a visit to the quaint town of Capitola, just up the Santa Cruz coast from Rio del Mar, which was badly affected by flooding from creek waters. Raging surf destroyed an iconic pier.
A 43-year-old woman was found dead Wednesday in her submerged car a day after calling 911 to say the vehicle was stuck in floodwaters north of San Francisco, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office.
When the search resumed at dawn, divers discovered the car under about 10 feet of water on a rural road near Forestville, the department said.
More than half of California's 58 counties have been declared disaster areas, and the damage can cost more than $1 billion to repair, according to Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the state's Office of Emergency Services.
Crews worked to reopen major highways that were closed by rock slides, flooded or covered in mud, while more than 10,000 people ordered to leave coastal cities on the Central Coast were able to return to their homes.
That included Montecito, a wealthy Santa Barbara County community that is home to Prince Harry and other celebrities, where 23 people were killed and more than 100 homes destroyed in a landslide five years ago.
This week's storm brought back heartbreaking memories for Montecito resident Susanne Tobey, who was rescued when the 2018 mudslide roared through her community.
Like five years ago, when the community was asked to evacuate on Monday, the only road out was closed, he said. โIt was terrifying,โ he said of the latest storm. โI think I didn't sleep all night and the rain wasโฆyou can't imagine. It's like living in a waterfall." But even with another storm on the way, Tobey said he plans to stay again.
She said the community has made improvements that it hopes to prevent a similar tragedy, including adding steel netting to catch falling rocks and debris basins to catch the deluge before it reaches slopes that plunge into the Pacific Ocean.
โYou have to be brave to live in California,โ he said, adding: โI can't imagine living anywhere else.โ
High in the Eastern Sierra, California Department of Transportation snowplows were working around the clock to fully reopen US 395, which at one point was blocked by 75 miles of snow, ice and rock. The Palisades Tahoe Ski Resort reported that it had received 300 inches of snow so far this season.
Despite the rainfall, most of the state remained in extreme or severe droughtaccording to the US Drought Monitor.
Mudslides damaged some homes in expensive Los Angeles hillside areas, while further up the coast, a sinkhole damaged 15 homes in the rural community of Orcutt.
Kevin Costner, winner of the award for best actor in a television drama series for "Yellowstone," was unable to attend Tuesday's Golden Globe awards in Los Angeles because of the weather. Host Regina Hall said he was taking refuge in Santa Barbara because of the flooding.
In San Francisco, a tree fell on a passenger bus Tuesday without causing any injuries and lightning struck the city's iconic Transamerica Pyramid building without causing damage. In south San Francisco, strong winds also ripped off part of the roof of a large apartment building.
Chainsaw-wielding crews were working around the clock to clear all the downed trees in the Bay Area. Arborist Remy Hummer said he expected many more trees to fall when the rains returned.
โThe soil is basically like a sponge, and at some point it can't hold any more water and the trees essentially become almost floating on the ground and very loose. and then you get the high wind combinations and that's when tree failure occurs, meaning entire trees uprooting and falling over,โ he said.
