LOS ANGELES, Jan 2 (NNN-Xinhua) — Two people died after a strong winter storm hitting northern California’s Sacramento County on Saturday caused a double levee breach along a local river and flooded parts of a state highway, local media said.
One of them died after being pulled from the water, and the other was found dead in a submerged vehicle, local media said.
The breach along the Cosumnes River near Wilton, 35 km south of the city of Sacramento, flooded parts of Highway 99, the main thoroughfare through California’s 47,000-square-km-large Central Valley. Local emergency personnel have been performing rescues since Saturday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
So far, dozens of people have been plucked from their cars that got stuck in floods.
Sacramento County proclaimed a local state of emergency on Saturday evening, and asked residents of low-lying communities to prepare to leave the area before more roadways are cut off by rising water and evacuation becomes impossible.
Meanwhile, 145,000 residents in the Sacramento area were affected by power outages on New Year’s Eve following heavy winds, and more than 31,000 remained without power till Sunday afternoon, according to local media reports. — NNN-XINHUA
