Ron Caetano is packed and ready to go. His family photos and valuables are in the trailer and he's put food in carry totes. He moved the rabbits and chickens and their automatic feeders to higher ground.
He and his family and dogs could get out in less than an hour, they figure, should more heavy rain or hot weather melt so much mountain snow that gushing water overwhelms the rivers and channel that surround their tight-knit, rural Central California community and give it its name, the Island District.
"The water is coming this way," said Caetano, who started a Facebook group to help organize his neighbours. "I am preparing for the worst and praying for the best and that's all we can do."
After more than a dozen atmospheric rivers dumped epic rain and snowfall on California, a reservoir that stores water upstream is expected to receive three times its capacity in the coming months. Caetano and his neighbours in the tree-lined Island District, home to a school, pistachio orchards and horse ranches about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, could soon be marooned by rising rivers or flooded out.
Water managers are concerned that the spring snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada will be so massive that the north fork of the Kings River won't be able to contain it and carry it toward the Pacific Ocean. Much of the water also is being channelled into the river's south fork, which winds through the area near the small city of Lemoore to fill a vast basin.
More than a century ago, that basin was an enormous body of freshwater known as Tulare Lake, the largest west of the Mississippi River. It would grow in winter as snowmelt streamed down from the mountains. But over time, settlers dammed and diverted waterways to irrigate crops, and the lake went dry. Now, Tulare Lake reappears only during the rainiest years, like this one, covering what is now a vast swath of farmland with water.
Today, paved roads vanish beneath the lake's lapping waves and utility poles and trees jut out above the water, vestiges of land-living put on hold. Fields that typically grow wheat, tomatoes, and other crops lie underneath.
David Merritt, general manager for the Kings River Conservation District, said the Pine Flat Reservoir about 50 miles (80 kilometres) upstream can hold up to 1 million acre feet of water, but is expected to receive more than 3 million acre feet this spring from the melting snow. Officials have been forced to increase the flow of water out of the reservoir to make space for more, Merritt said.
"Once we're at capacity, now you're putting a lot of stress on those conveyance channels," Merritt said. "It's a very fast moving stream and it's very deep right now."
Island District residents have revived a decades-old network of neighbours for the first time since 1983 to assist each other in the event of a crisis. The last time the Island Property Protection Association activated, there was no such thing as text messages or even emails to quickly spread the word, said Tony Oliveira, a former county supervisor and the network's administrator.
In a week, more than 200 people volunteered to help neighbours through the network, and the group's website received more than 4,000 hits.
"It's going to be four months of holding our breath," Oliveira said.
The winter rains were welcomed by California's parched cities and desperate growers, who have been grappling with intense drought for the past several years. The state has long tended toward wet and dry periods, but scientists at University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography have said they expect climate change will lead to drier dry years and wetter wet years.
What will determine how communities fare now is how quickly the weather heats up. If temperatures remain cool, snow will melt slowly, with water gradually flowing from the mountains. But a hot spell could send massive amounts of water churning through rivers that could potentially overflow, officials said. A beaver or a squirrel that tears a hole in a levee could also bring trouble.
Rising temperatures this week have many residents on edge. Park officials announced plans to temporarily close part of Yosemite National Park starting Friday due to the threat of flooding. Reservations for campgrounds and lodging in eastern Yosemite Valley will automatically be cancelled and refunded.
Michael Anderson, California's state climatologist, said water inflows into some reservoirs are expected to double though he doesn't expect the warming trend to cause immediate flooding in residential areas.
But in the coming weeks and months that could change. Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the reemerged lake Tuesday and said the worst is likely yet to come as more water reaches the basin.
"Where we're standing likely will be underwater in a matter of weeks, if not months," he said. "That's very sobering."
It isn't the first time Kings County, home to 150,000 people in the fertile San Joaquin Valley, has faced these challenges.
Many longtime residents recall when Tulare Lake reappeared 40 years ago. Officials believe crops will remain under water much longer this time due to the massive snowpack, said Dusty Ference, executive director of the Kings County Farm Bureau. To date, more than 60,000 acres of farmland (242 square kilometres) have flooded, he said.
It also returned on a smaller scale in 1997, said Nicholas Pinter, associate director of the University of California, Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. He said the lake has always fluctuated in size due to California's highly-variable water cycle, and farmers have long known there would be periods like this.
"It has been an engineering problem all along," he said. "This is a bathtub with no drain."
Near the lake, the city of Corcoran, which is home to 22,000 people including 8,000 state prisoners, began emergency construction to raise a levee that protects the community. The water behind the levee is already at 178 feet (54 metres), just 10 feet (3 metres) below the top. Officials want to raise the levee another 3.5 feet (1 metre), city officials said.
"If that water rises above that amount, we will have water coming into our city and we will be in a critical situation," said Greg Gatzka, Corcoran's city manager.
In the Island District, residents don't have a levee to protect them. They snap photos of wooden sticks placed near waterways to gauge water levels and banks and post them online to keep others informed. They're helping place sandbags on elderly neighbours' property and paying close attention to reports from water and county officials, and from each other.
Oliveira, whose family has lived in the area for generations, said he remembers moving cattle and horses when the rains came in 1983, and will do the same this time, if necessary.
"We're farmers. We have bulldozers and backhoes, we have trailers. We can bring things to bear sometimes faster than the public agencies can," Oliveira said. "The people who live in the Island are just kind of those neighbours taking care of neighbours."
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Taxin reported from Orange County, California
The Israeli military targeted a top Hezbollah figure in a strike on Beirut's southern suburbs on Friday, two security sources in Lebanon said, sharply escalating the year-long conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed group.
Smoke is rising over Lebanon’s capital of Beirut Friday after Israel’s military struck southern suburbs – a dramatic escalation in a year-long period of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.
The province's public security minister said he was "shocked" Thursday amid reports that a body believed to be that of a 14-year-old boy was found this week near a Hells Angels hideout near Quebec City.
An Ontario man says it is 'unfair' to pay a $1,500 insurance surcharge because his four-year-old SUV is at a higher risk of being stolen.
Following the MIND diet for 10 years produced a small but significant decrease in the risk of developing thinking, concentration and memory problems, a new study found.
The Montreal couple from Mexico and their three children facing deportation have received a temporary residence permit.
A 20-year-old man and his co-conspirator have been charged with conspiracy to steal and launder over US$230 million in cryptocurrency, and federal authorities said the arrests are connected to an FBI raid of a mansion in Miami.
The federal firearm buyback program has cost taxpayers nearly $67.2 million since it was announced in 2020, but it still hasn't collected a single gun.
Emergency crews in northern Ontario found the bodies of four people inside a home where a fire broke out Thursday night.
Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.
The Montreal couple from Mexico and their three children facing deportation have received a temporary residence permit.
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The mayor of a French town making headlines for the trial of dozens of men accused of rapes that occurred there over almost a decade has apologized for comments that appeared to downplay the case.
A federal law enforcement agency confirmed it's opened an investigation into Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after he allegedly cut off the head of a dead whale and took it home two decades ago.
Smoke is rising over Lebanon’s capital of Beirut Friday after Israel’s military struck southern suburbs – a dramatic escalation in a year-long period of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.
Lawyers in Britain representing dozens of alleged victims of Mohamed Al Fayed, the former boss of Harrods, said Friday their clients assert that he was a “monster†who raped and sexually abused young women.
A 20-year-old man and his co-conspirator have been charged with conspiracy to steal and launder over US$230 million in cryptocurrency, and federal authorities said the arrests are connected to an FBI raid of a mansion in Miami.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tapped Treasury Board President Anita Anand to take on additional duties as Canada's minister of transport on Thursday.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh got into a heated exchange in the House of Commons on Thursday, just minutes after Singh announced his party would not be supporting the Conservatives' first non-confidence motion against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government.
The head of Via Rail repeatedly told MPs a train delay over the Labour Day long weekend was an isolated incident, despite a similar event two years ago.
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An Ontario man says it is 'unfair' to pay a $1,500 insurance surcharge because his four-year-old SUV is at a higher risk of being stolen.
Ontario police say they have arrested four members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (MC) and seized a number of firearms after an alleged assault and robbery in Hamilton in July.
Defence counsel for accused murderer John-Christopher Arrizza argues he was in an “altered state of mind†due to days of drug and alcohol use, sleep deprivation and not eating, when he fatally stabbed a man at a Banff nightclub in 2022.
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An Elgin County community is expected to double in size as plans for multiple residential developments loom. The Township of Southwold expects shovels in the ground as early as 2025.
Two men from Barrie have been charged after a deadly shooting at a park in Keswick on Wednesday.
A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.
Ontario Provincial Police executed a search warrant in Walkerton.
On Thursday, just after 9:30 a.m., a man was found and taken to police headquarters, where he was released with conditions and a future court date.
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The Windsor Police Service (WPS) has seized over $56,000 in drugs and have arrested one suspect.
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A Vulcan, Alta., man has been charged with a Lethbridge woman's murder after her body was found in the Oyen area.
A Lethbridge couple got a good reminder as to why you should keep your vehicle doors locked at all times.
Lethbridge residents who live near the police range can expect to hear plenty of shots fired Wednesday and Thursday.
A new community health profile in the Algoma District shows the area is significantly below provincial averages in a number of health metrics.
North Bay Police Service says one person has died following an industrial accident at the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission Rail Yard on Tuesday.
Three northern Ontario residents are charged with drug trafficking after the vehicle they were in got stuck along a bush road off Highway 17 on Monday.
Newfoundland and Labrador's chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
A 16-year-old biennial event aimed at fostering business in the country's eastern Arctic and northern regions has been cancelled indefinitely as a dispute unfolds between Inuit in Canada and a Labrador group claiming to share their heritage.
Jim Lester’s farm hopped on the cow-cuddling trend in early August, and his time slots have been pretty well sold out ever since.
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