California floods: Atmospheric river brings snow, strong winds and flooding to state
Nearly 10,000 Californians have been forced to flee their homes after widespread flooding and snow was triggered by an atmospheric river across the state.
Several major highways and rural communities were blocked off after swelling rivers burst their banks, and creeks overflowed in Santa Cruz County, south of San Francisco.
Authorities in the town of Soquel are urging people to stay indoors, as flooding destroyed the town’s Main Street, trapping some in their homes.
Teacher Heather Wingfield from the town said she was trapped in her home after the nearby Bates Creek rushed through Soquel.
“It’s horrible,” she said. “Hopefully no one has a medical emergency.”
She added that water infrastructure has been washed out for her and her neighbours.
Several feet of water also covered nearby Watsonville, while a burst river bank in Springville washed a road away.
There has also been flash floods in the foothill town of Kernville, with the river, known locally as “killer Kern”, continuing to rise.
One Kernville local claimed the river has tripled in size overnight.
No injuries have so far been reported, but evacuation orders are in place across the region in central California.
Pic: AP
An atmospheric river is a bed of moisture in the atmosphere that carries wet air from the tropics, and dumps heavy snow and rain across another region.
They can be up to 375 miles wide, and stretch to be more than 1,000 miles long, and are usually seen as an important source of rainfall for the region.
It’s the latest atmospheric river to dump rain across the state in recent weeks, with the governor Gavin Newsom declaring emergencies in 34 counties, while the White House approved a disaster declaration, which should provide financial relief to California.
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There could be more trouble in the Sierra Nevada too, as snow on the mountains begins to melt, contributing to further flooding, some forecasters have said.
Melting snow is expected to cause further problems Pic: AP
Lake Oroville, a huge reservoir in California and home to the tallest dam in the US, has seen its spillways opened for the first time in four years, due to the excessive volume of water in it.
State officials are hoping to harness the excess rainfall for use later in the year to help deal with inevitable droughts across California.
Governor Newsom has signed an executive order in recent days, allowing farmers and water agencies to store more water in underground aquifers.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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