TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Bakersfield’s three days of non-stop, record-shattering rain started tapering off Monday night but not before flooding more homes, transforming more streets into rivers and setting off a McFarland evacuation report that turned out not to be so dire.

At .8 inches we were just shy of the record daily rainfall total as of 4 p.m. Monday, according to the latest National Weather Service numbers available. The previous high was .86 inches in 1943.

But we continued to add to the total for what’s become the wettest December on record for Bakersfield, reaching 4.32 inches. The high bar for December rain had been 2.98 inches in 1931.

Bakersfield should get a break from the wet stuff Tuesday, said Weather Service meteorologist Jim Bagnall. Another storm arriving Tuesday night will dump rain on Kern County mountains, he said, but the rain shadow effect is forecast to keep Bakersfield dry until about noon Wednesday.

That storm should blow out of Bakersfield Wednesday night and we shouldn’t see rain Thursday or Friday, Bagnall said.

But don’t hang your umbrellas up too deep in the closet because there’s the possibility of more rain Saturday and Sunday, he said. On the bright side, snow levels in Kern County’s mountains should stay above the passes through Sunday.

“It’ll be wet and slippery and people will run into each other but the snow and icy stuff will stay at high levels,” Bagnall said.

Weather can be unpredictable, though. The Weather Service said last Friday we’d only see about an inch of rain this past weekend.

Weather Service meteorologist Jim Dudley said the underestimation was due to the relative lack of data collected over the Pacific Ocean, making it difficult for computers to predict precipitation.

“It’s an unprecedented event,” Dudley said. “It’s difficult to forecast all-time records.”

HUMAN IMPACT

Rosedale-area resident Jim Sverchek and others throughout the county were probably less concerned with the records than the threats to their homes Monday.

Sverchek said water leaked into his living room and repairs will probably cost him a couple thousand dollars.

“The water reached up to the stucco, and that’s when it got (into the house),” he said after loading his truck with sandbags at Yokuts Park. “I should’ve done this a couple days ago.”

He was among scores of Bakersfield residents who drove pickups and other large vehicles into the parking lot, where there were a giant pile of sand and thousands of bags.

Since Sunday night, part of a northwest Bakersfield residential street off Calloway Drive and Seabeck Avenue flooded after a reservoir behind the Northwest Promenade shopping center overflowed.

“The reservoir is full. Last night I looked and water was built up in front of the reservoir. It was like a lake in there,” said Clint McKinney, who lives several houses down from the reservoir.

Markers to keep drivers in the middle of the road were placed on the corners of Kennewick Lane and Seabeck Avenue plus Green Mountain Lane and Seabeck Avenue because water had started to rise above the curb, sidewalks and even the lower half of driveways.

“It just got up to the grass today around 1 p.m. I don’t know what we’re gonna do, we can’t get out of here,” said Nicole Vaquera. “It’s kind of scary. Luckily, we’re on a hill.”

With really nothing the neighborhood could do at the time, people on Seabeck made the best of the situation.

“It’s like an adventure, though. We’ve been fortunate to not have water inside the house. We’ll try to fight it off as best we can.

“We have a ways before it gets to here. Hopefully they can respond to the people that really need it,” McKinney said of the city taking care of other parts of Bakersfield like the southwest before helping his.

McKinney said he planned to pull neighborhood kids down the street on inner tubes Tuesday, something health officials warned against.

“We sorta don’t know what to do. The city’s normally responsive. If it gets closer, I guess I’ll have to get sandbags,” McKinney said.

CITY EFFORTS

Raul Rojas, the city’s public works director, said at any given time 100 or more staffers were out in the field, 24 hours a day, coping with the flooding.

About 30,000 sandbags had been given out or delivered to residents as of Monday evening.

The hardest hit parts of the city were the northwest and southwest, Rojas said.

Crews had cleaned out storm drains and catch basins before the weekend, he said, but didn’t anticipate the strength of the storms.

Some city sumps were filled to capacity. About a dozen mobile pumps are operating now, with more on the way, draining water to other sumps or into canals, Rojas said.

City Manager Alan Tandy said there was no precise count as to how many Bakersfield homes have been breached by water, but his office estimated as many as 1,000 as of Monday night.

Tandy said he was not aware of any city residents who had been entirely displaced from their homes.

Tandy, who has been with the city for about 18 years, said neither he nor anyone on staff could remember such dramatic flooding in Bakersfield.

“This is the most severe in a long time,” he said.

Rhonda Smiley of the Bakersfield city manager’s office said the city’s Emergency Operations Center was operating separately yet in tandem with the county.
Both the city and county were working to get a state emergency declaration.

COORDINATING THE RESPONSE

Officials from several law enforcement and government agencies gathered Monday at the Emergency Operations Center in northeast Bakersfield to coordinate response efforts.

Reports of flooding and other storm-related incidents were funneled to the center, which is used as a command site for situations that require personnel and resources from multiple agencies.

The $3.4 million, 6,965-square-foot facility on Panorama Drive near Mount Vernon Avenue, which opened two years ago, was buzzing with activity as officials answered phones, discussed their plans of action and watched live weather feeds on large monitors throughout the room.

“If we didn’t have this facility, it would be extremely hard to coordinate efforts of this magnitude,” said Anthony Romero, spokesman for the Kern County Fire Department.

County Fire Chief Nick Dunn is charged with running the operations center during incidents that demand multi-agency attention, Romero said.

Dunn’s department was joined by officials from the county roads and sheriff’s departments as well as the Bakersfield police and fire departments.

Officials were closely watching the Arvin and Lamont areas, which have suffered from severe flooding in the past, as well as the regions of the county that were affected by fires this past summer because they could be susceptible to flooding and run-off.

The facility, which is used for emergency preparedness training throughout the year, also helps in quashing rumors that often spread during emergencies.

“When it affects the whole county, that’s when we start bringing everybody together,” Romero said. “We don’t want miscommunications.”

Meanwhile, sections of many roads in Bakersfield and around Kern were closed due to flooding.

Several residential streets west of Gosford Road and south of District Boulevard were blocked off, although large trucks could be seen plowing through the pools of water.

Yellow “FLOODED” signs were posted throughout the Campus Park neighborhood, where Kelly King was keeping an eye on the water level outside his home.

“I’m glad it’s not stinky water,” King said as he sloshed across McAbee Lane in his new black boots. “But where are all the pumps?”

OUTLYING AREAS

McFarland got a lot of media attention after the county fire department distributed an evacuation notice to the media. But in the end it turned out to be voluntary and few people actually evacuated.

In Weldon, at least 10 people and six dogs left their residences early Monday following reports of flooding near Kelso Valley and Kelso Creek roads, according to the Kern County Fire Department. The Kern River Valley Senior Center in Lake Isabella was being used by the American Red Cross as an evacuation center.

Evacuation centers in McFarland were established at 100 S. 2nd St. and at McFarland High School.

In Shafter, sand bags were made available at the Shafter Police Department, 210 Central Valley Highway., and at the Shafter city corporation yard, 101 W. Tulare Ave.

Between the thousands of sandbags being given out and a couple of streets being pumped of water, Shafter Chief of Police Charlie Fivecoat and Shafter City Manager John Guinn said Shafter was doing OK compared to other cities.

“I’m happy to report that we haven’t had any major damage to residences in the city ... We’ve been blessed, I think Shafter has come out of this a lot better than our sister cities have,” Fivecoat said.

The two residential areas of Shafter that Fivecoat and Guinn were concerned about were being monitored. They’re off Reiker Street and Grace Court as well as near Elizabeth Avenue and Kattenhorn Road.

“The water is deep and it’s over the curb line, but it’s not threatening people’s homes at this point,” Fivecoat said about the houses on Grace Court near Reiker Street.

Monday morning, public works crews created a temporary pond near the Grace Court neighborhood, and by Monday evening, most of the water was pumped out of the intersection, Fivecoat said.

Several pumps were also sent to the neighborhood near Elizabeth Avenue and Kattenhorn Road on Monday afternoon.

“We’re making great progress on that end. Right now, the way the weather is going, unless we have some really major storm, we’re pretty well on our way. After 27 hours, I’m going home,” Fivecoat said.

Californian staff writer Gretchen Wenner and breaking news editor Christine L. Peterson contributed to this report.