Several residents faulted the city for failing to provide proper warnings.
“The city dropped the ball on making sure that people were notified of the potential impact of this flood,” said resident Jean-Marie White, whose house and backyard were flooded. “Nobody had any clue.”
Another resident, Julie Smalls, said there was no warning from the water authority or the city that the flooding would be so intense. Her backyard, which slopes down to the creek, was submerged in about 20 feet of water and eventually flooded her basement, she said.
“Had we been made aware of the severity of what was coming our way, we would have done a whole lot more to get stuff out of our basement,” she said.
About 300 people stayed in emergency shelters set up by the city, while many found other accommodations.
Bob Benjamin, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said the water level in 30-mile long Coyote Creek reached a 100-year high during this week’s storm.
Downpours in the past few weeks have saturated the once-drought-stricken region and wreaked havoc for residents. At least four people have died as a result of the storms throughout the state in the past week.
Assistant San Jose City Manager Dave Sykes said officials first became aware of the rising water late Tuesday when firefighters began evacuating about 400 people from a low-lying residential area.
City officials did not believe the waters would spread to other neighborhoods and did not expand the evacuation orders.
Coyote Creek flooded after Anderson Dam in Santa Clara County reached capacity during heavy weekend rains.
Managers of the dam are taking advantage of a break in the storms to draw down the reservoir, which is supposed to be limited to 68 percent of capacity because of earthquake concerns but is now at 100 percent, said Jim Fiedler, a chief operating officer at the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
He said it could take nine weeks to bring it down to normal levels. Inspectors in 2010 discovered the dam is vulnerable to a major quake and $400 million is being spent to make it earthquake-proof by 2024.
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AP writers Kristin Bender and Jocelyn Gecker in San Francisco, Scott Smith in Fresno and Amanda Lee Myers in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Article Appeared @https://www.yahoo.com/news/downstream-communities-brace-flooding-dams-overflow-073444166.html