From Wednesday November 28th to Sunday December 2nd 2012, Rio Linda (and Sacramento County) received a deluge measuring 5.5 inches of rain in just five days.
Sunday morning and afternoon flooding was reported at the height of the storm and continued as creeks began to rise. There was flooding reported at E Street, Cherry Lane, Curved Bridge Rd, 6th Street, Rio Linda Blvd., Q Street and others in the Rio Linda/Elverta area.
And it didn’t stop there. There was flooding at The Arbors, At Watt and Don Julio, DelPaso Rd at Sorrento, Raley Blvd at Santa Ana, and many, many other location throughout Northern Sacramento County.
During the height of the storm I got messages from many people asking about sandbags.
“Does anyone know where I could get some sand bags?”
“Are there sandbag locations set up anywhere ???”
I looked at the Department of Water Resources site and they listed no open locations.
Sacramento County Dept. of Water Resources director Michael Peterson said:
“We did not see this as a widespread flooding situation that we’ve seen in the past… It could sound subjective but widespread generally is… is this a County-wide, out of banks, stream flooding event, or is this going to be localized in some areas?”
The DWR should have had sandbag locations open. Magpie Creek Overflowed at Raley Blvd. Arcade Creek was on the deck of the Winding Way bridge. Deer Creek was at flood stage early Sunday. There’s three locations outside of Rio Linda that experienced flooding of some type due to creeks overflowing their banks.
The real reasoning behind keeping the sandbagging location unmanned comes from News10 reporter Nick Monacelli. Nick reports that the DWR Director stated that “His staff needed to be used wisely… cleaning drains and preventing more damage, and the flooding needs to affect more areas.”
So, it was a money-saving move. They decided against adding staff to open sandbagging locations in order to clean drains.
Except, clean drains weren’t the problem with this storm. The storm drain system was overwhelmed. Intersections were turned into lake within minutes because the Sunday Morning deluge swamped the creeks, backed up the storm drains, and the water had nowhere to go. Dry Creek crested just below flood stage around Midnight on the 2nd. All three branches (East, West and Diversion canal) crested well above warning stage. The diversion canal, which relieves volume from the large eastern branch of Dry Creek was as full as I’ve ever seen it.
The rain fell, the storm drainage was overwhelmed, the water backed up in the creeks, and as usual the people in low-lying Rio Linda paid for it.
I haven’t even mentioned the development that’s taken place in Roseville over the last 20 years that drains all it’s stormwater through the Dry Creek system. I’ll save that rant for another time.
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