Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Thousands flee California flooding

John Pape in Disaster News Network: A relentless weather system continued to pound California on Monday, forcing the evacuation of several thousand residents in a Kern County farming community. The evacuations were ordered after major flooding was reported in McFarland, a community of 12,000 residents. Kern County Fire Department spokesman Sean Collins said as many as 2,000 people needed to seek shelter.

“Hundreds of houses are in danger of flooding,” Collins said. “They need to evacuate as soon as possible.” A sheriff’s department helicopter was dispatched to the area to conduct an aerial survey of the flooding and search for any stranded residents….

This map shows the incorporated and unincorporated areas in Kern County, California, highlighting McFarland in red, created by Arkyan, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

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