Wary N. California Braces for New Storm

SACRAMENTO â€”  From the North Coast redwoods to the rice fields of the Central Valley, edgy Northern Californians kept their eyes on the skies Friday, watching the arrival of a storm expected to bring new woes to a region still soggy from the historic New Year’s flood.

As residents in vulnerable areas prepared to evacuate and moved valuables from their homes, repair crews worked feverishly to shore up levees saturated and weakened by weeks of high river flows.

State officials, meanwhile, mobilized teams of flood fighters assigned to spend Super Bowl weekend coping with the consequence of heavy downpours, which could drop 8 inches of rain on some areas before a brief dry spell Monday.

By Friday evening, the storm had already dropped about an inch of rain in the Bay Area, and flash flood warnings were issued for the Napa and Russian River valleys, according to WeatherData Inc., which forecasts for The Times.

At some already brimming state reservoirs, operators had begun increasing water releases to make room for a gush of runoff sure to surge down from the hills beginning today.

“This is a major winter storm,� said Eric Butler, director of the state’s flood operations center, which is operating around the clock. “If it hits as advertised . . . it will take a toll on a system that is already stressed.�

The storm comes just three weeks after a stretch of unusually wet weather spawned flooding from the Oregon border to Fresno, claiming nine lives, causing $1.6 billion in losses and damaging or destroying 20,000 homes.

Meteorologists said this weekend’s storm will not be as fierce. But its timing--close on the heels of those deadly floods--makes it a cause for concern.

Not only is the ground saturated and unable to soak up any more water, but levees are drenched and weak--and in many cases, still breached or under repair.

Compounding the problems are the storm’s relatively warm temperatures, which will raise the snow level to about 7,000 feet. All precipitation below that elevation will flow into reservoirs, many of which are at or near flood stage.

As state flood specialist James Bailey put it, “It’s like going into a rainstorm with your gutters already full.�

In Sonoma County, the unruly Russian River was rising and residents still drying out from early January’s disaster were fleeing.

Mervana Foremski lives with her husband and two children on the river’s bank near Forestville. She spent Friday “moving everything four feet up� off the floor of her home, which was flooded three weeks ago--and in 1995.

“I’m getting very good at flood preparation,� she said ruefully as the family prepared to depart and spend the night in a Santa Rosa hotel that offers discounts for evacuees. “That’s not exactly something I want on my resume.�

The Foremskis bought their home during the drought, falling in love with its location on the meandering river. “Now we don’t trust the river. It has burned us too many times.�

At the Sonoma County Office of Emergency Services, assistant coordinator Chris Godley said the river would undoubtedly reach flood stage with the heavy rain expected today.

“We’re all very nervous,� he said. “This is supposed to be an intense, violent storm, so we’re expecting road closures, power outages, flash flooding--all of those awful things we just went through.�

The mood was tense in Sacramento as well. At cafes, the lunch crowd was abuzz with rainfall predictions and flood anecdotes, while television stations prepared to switch to their now-familiar “Storm Watch� formats, replacing regular programming with minute-to-minute updates on the weather and its victims.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which has customers in 47 counties from Humboldt to Kern, placed its workers on “storm shifts� of 12 hours each beginning Friday night.

And the state Department of Water Resources unveiled an expanded online Water Conditions page on the World Wide Web, providing updates on reservoir storage and releases, river conditions and forecasts. The address: https://www.dwr.water.ca.gov

As the storm system rolled in Friday, state flood experts said they were most anxious about the beleaguered lower San Joaquin River system, where some of the most extensive flooding and levee failures occurred earlier this month.

Many of the dams on rivers feeding into the San Joaquin system remain at or near capacity--and thus will be forced to increase water releases as runoff builds. Those releases may overwhelm downstream channels, causing flooding.

At Friant Dam above Fresno, operators were making maximum releases beginning Friday morning--and had already encroached significantly into the reservoir’s cushion of flood control space.

“If the forecasts hold up, we could be looking at a situation like we had two weeks ago,� said Tony Buelna, who operates the dam for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

There also were fears that rising waters at Lake Success on the Tule River could cause flooding near Porterville.

“I think everyone in water management is concerned at this point,� said Jason Fanselau of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Fanselau said crews have repaired 13 breached levees since the New Year’s flood but are still working on 11 more. Inspectors were patrolling the earthen dikes Friday, looking for weak spots that could lead to additional breaks.