Petaluma, Calif. – A powerful storm set off mudslides that blocked major highways and sent rivers and creeks over their banks and into cities across northern California on Saturday.
At least half a dozen people had to be rescued from the rushing water, and forecasters were warning of another storm today.
California officials urged residents along the Napa and Russian rivers and on hillsides to collect their valuables, gather emergency supplies and get out.
In the city of Napa, near the heart of wine country, the river was already 5 feet over flood stage.
Farther inland, Reno, Nev., was seeing its worst flooding since a 1997 flood that caused $1 billion in damage.
Firefighters in the Sonoma area rescued two people from a mobile-home park, where 4 feet of rushing water washed at least one home off its foundation, and they were searching for a third person, said Division Chief Bob Norrbom with the Sonoma Valley Fire Authority. Cars floated through the park, pushed by the water.
Elsewhere, television footage showed a stranded driver being plucked from the back of a pickup by a rescue helicopter, and another person being pulled to safety through the water.
Rick Diaz went out into a flooded Petaluma neighborhood in a 14-foot Zodiac boat on his own to ferry residents to dry ground and rescue their pets.
“He’s a hero,” said a tearful Suzi Keber after the wetsuit-clad Diaz rescued two pet lizards from her home.
In downtown San Anselmo, the creek overflowed into as many as 70 businesses, said town administrator Debbie Stutsman. Two people rescued from the rising water there were hospitalized with hypothermia, she said.
“I’m looking out of my office now at merchants bringing their damaged goods out into the street,” Stutsman said. “The entire downtown area was under 4 1/2 feet of water. It’s pretty bad all across town.”
Meteorologists had warned that parts of Sonoma, Sacramento, Shasta and Tehama counties were ripe for their worst flooding in years, and they said severe flooding was anticipated upstream in Calistoga, St. Helena and Yountville, as well.
In St. Helena, the Napa River was at record levels, 7 feet over flood stage.
Mudslides closed several major roads, including Interstate 80 in the Sierra Nevada about 25 miles west of Reno. Six tractor-trailer rigs were caught up in one slide on the interstate early Saturday, but no injuries were reported.
